Honeywicke Cottage Eaton Bray

Honeywicke Cottage January 2009

Honeywick Lane lies some way north of the village of Eaton Bray. Honeywicke Cottage lies a little way down the south-east facing lane. The cottage was listed by the former Department of Environment in September 1980 as Grade II, of special interest.

The cottage dates from the late 18the century, though it was altered in the 19th. It is built with local flint with brick dressings. The main wing comprises two storeys with a right-hand wing of one storey and an attic within a mansard roof. The roofs are of old clay tiles. The porch is modern.

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 and the valuer visiting Honeywicke Cottage [DV1/C202/34] found that it was owned and occupied by T. Tearle.

The cottage comprised a living room, a kitchen and two bedrooms. This is presumably in the main block; the valuer does not seem to have listed the composition of the right hand wing. He commented: “Roof slightly low but nice” and noted: “Was 2 cottages”. Outside stood two weather-boarded and thatched barns, a meal house, a store, and a weather-boarded and corrugated iron earth closet. By the road were two weather-boarded and corrugated iron hovels and in the adjoining orchard two weather-boarded and corrugated iron piggeries and a hen house.