Cherry Cottage 9 Warden Road April 2009

9 Warden Road was listed by the former Department of Environment in March 1985 as Grade II, of special interest. The department dated the property to the 18th century. It is a timber framed construction with colour washed roughcast render
and some exposed timbering, a thatched roof, one storey and attics, with a roof hipped at the west end over a single storey additional bay.

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. Ickwell was assessed in 1927 and the valuer visiting the property [DV1/C44/92] found it owned by brewers Charles Wells Limited and occupied by Mrs. Lucy Humphries who paid £16 per annum rent, set in 1912. This included farm buildings, an orchard of old cherry trees of just over an acre with some younger apple trees and a third of an acre of grassland.

Accommodation comprised a living room, kitchen, scullery and pantry with two bedrooms above. The premises were described as “fair”. An earth closet and washhouse lay outside. There was a large garden (the site of the house was just over half an acre) and water came from an outside tap. Farm buildings comprised a brick and tiled two bay cart shed, two stables each of two stalls (“good”), a wood and tiled cowhouse for one beast (“poor”), a pigsty (“poor”) and a two bay wood and corrugated iron shed (“poor”).