Manor Cottage Higham Gobion

Manor Cottage was listed by English Heritage in January 1985 as Grade II, of special interest. It dates from around the same time as the manor house, the 16th century, though reworked in the 18th and 19th centuries. It always formed part of the Manor of Higham Gobion and then Manor Farm.

It is a building with a substantial timber frame with some later lighter framing. It has been rendered in colour-washed roughcast and has a clay tile roof, which is higher on the left-hand side. It may originally have been a building with two rooms downstairs but later had four. The porch is 20th century and there is a single storey outhouse extension on the right-hand gable end.

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 property [DV1/A3/2a-b] found it was a tied cottage of Manor Farm. The western half was tenanted by Horace Jenkins and the east was in occupation of Abraham West.

Both tenants had a kitchen and parlour downstairs with a wood shed and earth closet outside. Jenkins' half is originally noted as having three bedrooms, later changed to two whereas West's was noted as having two bedrooms, later changed to three; he also had a bike shed outside. Water came from a tap outside.

Directories for Bedfordshire were not published every year but every few years from the early to mid-19th century until 1940. In 1936 and 1940 the tenant of manor Farm Cottage is given as F Bruce Davis suggesting the two cottages were amalgamated into one.