2 Gravel Pit Road Flitwick

2 Gravel Pit Road April 2017

Walking along Station Road, 2 Gravel Pit Road come as a surprise, amid a sea of modern housing is an old thatched cottage. It was listed by English Heritage in April 1983 as Grade II, of special interest. The listing dates the cottage from the 17th century and it is a timber-framed structure, covered with roughcast render and with weather-boarding at the gable ends. Two storeys lie beneath the thatched roof and the original cottage had two rooms upstairs and down.

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 cottage [DV1/C129/111] found that it was owned by Mrs E Martin and occupied by C Vincent, whose rent was £7 per annum. He may have been connected with Vincent Brothers, listed in Kelly’s Directory as market gardeners.

The house comprised a reception room and a kitchen with a washhouse. There were two bedrooms above. There was a lean-to weather-boarded and corrugated iron barn and in the garden a weather-boarded and tiled earth closet.