6 Sun Street Potton
6 Sun Street February 2013
6 Sun Street was listed by the former Ministry of Public Buildings and Works in October 1966 as Grade II, of special interest. It dates from the 18th century and is timber framed with “parts apparently rebuilt in brick”; the exterior is rendered in colourwashed roughcast and the roof is composed of clay tiles. The building comprises two storeys and attics on the road with a two storey wing projecting to the rear.
In 1703 John Raymont of London, tailor, owner of the Sun, sold a cottage formerly occupied by his mother to Stephen Raymont of Potton, maltster for £20/10/9 [PE413]. This seems to have been the cottage which adjoined the former Sun Inn to the south, i.e. 6 Sun Street. In 1704 Stephen Raymont sold the cottage to John Keelinge the younger of Potton, fellmonger. The back of this deed refers to the cottage as “the Hows next Mr. Lees on the South and next the Sun Inn on the North” [PE414].
The cottage seems to have been sold to Bigglesade brewers Wells and Company by John Dennis at the same time as the Sun in 1793 [CRT130Potton22]. When Wells and Company was put up for sale in 1898 the sale catalogue entry for the Sun includes the following [GK1/36]: "A Cottage, let to Mrs. Lee at £5 per annum”.
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 4 and 6 Sun Street found the properties owned by William Tear (Richard Tear, former lciensee of the Sun had ourchased it and, presumably, 6 Sun Street in 1908 [GK52/4]). A Mrs. Tear, presumably William’s mother, lived in Number 6 which comprised a living room and scullery downstairs with two bedrooms above. There was also a disused attic and a second scullery and a washhouse outside [DV1/C11/84].
Behind Number 6 was a long range of outbuildings [DV1/C11/85] occupied, like Number 4, by William Tear himself who is listed in Kelly’s Directory for Bedfordshire of 1928 as a market gardener. There was a brick and slate range comprising a barn, a seven stall stable and garage and a three stall stable used as a store, all with a loft over. There was also a wood and corrugated iron three bay hovel, a wood and corrugated iron open barn and hovel and a brick and tiled garage with a petrol engine carrot washer and a gas engine, there was also a four stall stable used as a barn and all had a loft over it and a scullery. The yard was partly covered in corrugated iron and wood.