209 Common Road Kensworth

Letterbox Cottage - 209 Common Road January 2013

Letterbox Cottage is a long, low building of some age. 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. Kensworth, like most of the county, was largely assessed in 1927 at the valuer visiting the property found that it was divided into two.

The owner was Walter Dixon of Green End Farm and the front part of the building was occupied by E. Woodcraft whose rent was 2/3 per week for a living room and scullery with two bedrooms upstairs. He shared an earth closet with the tenant of the rear half of the building who was G. Colliers, whose rent was three shillings per week. His accommodation comprised two living rooms and two sculleries with four bedrooms above, so this part of the building evidently had previously itself been divided into two. The valuer commented that the accommodation in front was “poor” and that in the rear “fairly poor”.