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44 The Village Old Warden

44 The Village January 2012
44 The Village January 2012

44 The Village is a Shuttleworth Estate property, built on the south-east side of the main road through the village, nearly opposite the school, in 1887.

The property was listed by the former Department of Environment in March 1985 as Grade II, of special interest. The house is built of red brick, the upper part with colourwashed roughcast render and applied timber-framing. It has a clay tiled roof with bands of fishscale tiles for decoration. Also decorative are the clay ridge cresting and finials. The building has an L-shape and comprises one storey and attics. The listing explains: "Included for group value".

The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting 44 The Village [DV1/C34/111] found it was occupied by Miss L. E. Booth, who paid no rent paid. The figure had been sixteen guineas in 1922.

The house comprised a sitting room, a kitchen, a small scullery and three bedrooms. It had no bathroom but the valuer still considered it "very good" as well as "Pretty".  Miss Booth paid no rent to the Estate because she was the school teacher and paid "£14 to School Managers which is inclusive. Admits low figure". The cottage may well have been built as the school teacher's house as it was built some twelve years after the school itself.

The valuer remarked "Lovely Cottage £16 [rent] right". A brick and tiled barn and washhouse and a wood and corrugated iron garage stood outside. Clearly the valuer was impressed: "Nice well built place".

In 1904 the property had been visited as part of the new Local Education Authority, Bedfordshire County Council's survey of its stock of schools and other properties connected with education. The surveyor reported as follows:

The School House is on the opposite side of the road [to the school] it has one fair-sized sitting room, a very small kitchen, hall and stairway, two bedrooms over, and a box-room off stairs.

The Scullery, House Closet, and Coal Barn are in a rear building.

These Premises are very small but are in fair order.