Rose Cottage Bolnhurst

Rose Cottage February 2016

Rose Cottage was listed by the former Department of Environment in August 1983 as Grade II, of special interest. It is built of colour-washed roughcast over a timber frame, with a thatched roof and comprises one storey and attics. There is a one storey slate-roofed lean-to extension at the front.

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 the thatched cottage [DV1/C168/32] found that it was owned and occupied by J R Hawkins. It stood in just over a quarter of an acre. The building contained a living room, a parlour, a kitchen and a scullery with three bedrooms on the first floor. Outside stood a weather-boarded and tiled barn, a weather-boarded and tiled shed, a weather-boarded and corrugated iron lean-to and a weather-boarded and corrugated iron shelter.

J R Hawkins also owned an adjacent weather-boarded and tiled smithy which he let to T Thompson for £2 per annum [DV1/C168/33]. The valuer described it as “very, very poor” and it was open one afternoon per week.

On 24th October 1940 a thatched cottage in the village was badly damaged in dramatic circumstances. Unfortunately we do not know which cottage this was but it is possible it was Rose Cottage [WW2/AR/CO/2/2]. There was a dogfight over the village which led to a German Dornier Do-17 medium bomber crashing near the Crown public house in Wyboston – three of the crew died and one was injured. The damage to the cottage was by fire, so it seems likely that bullets, spilling fuel or a hot piece of debris lodged in the thatch.