70 High Street Eaton Bray

70 High Street March 2012

70 High Street is an attractive cottage. It was listed by the former Department of Environment in September 1980 when it was dated as 17th century. It is a timber-framed structure with colourwashed plaster rendering. It comprises one storey with an attic and has a thatched roof. In 1980 the roof was corrugated iron.

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. Eaton Bray, like most of the county, was assessed in 1927. The valuer visiting 70 High Street [DV1/C235/55-56] found that it was owned and occupied by W. and E. Piggott.

The cottage had two living rooms and two sculleries downstairs with three bedrooms in the attics, clearly indicating it had once been two separate dwellings. Outside stood a corrugated iron washhouse and W. C. ( “Old and bad”), a small brick and corrugated iron barn, a weather-boarded and corrugated iron store place, a cow house for two, a stable for one, a cart shed for one, a four bay open fronted cart shed with a cow house for one inside and a lean-to shed, all summed up by the valuer as “useful”. There was also 1.051 acres of orchard, the valuer noting that the trees were “all ages, ground all old pits”.