Building record ADT 122 - Cedar Court, Alderton

Grade II Georgian red-brick house, boasting an exceptionally well preserved southern façade of the mid- to late-18th century, and the adjoining walled courtyard is separately listed in conjunction with a serpentine-walled garden. A very good early-19th century stable and coach-house block to the west of the house is surprisingly not mentioned in either of the site's two entries in the listing schedule. The property was formerly known as Seganhoe, which may reflect an early-medieval origin. It was radically remodelled in the 17th century. A map of 1826 shows the distinctive U-shaped outline of the listed rear courtyard, formed by single-storied structure on three sides with the house on the fourth, but the stable was first depicted on the tithe map of 1840. In 1922 the western structure was described as a 'covered way' linking the house to a 'picturesque garden room' with leaded windows and its own large fireplace overlooking the serpentine-walled garden to the north. The garden room was demolished in the 17th century but in its present form the covered way appears to date from an earlier mock Gothic refurbishment of the late-19th century or early-20th century. Its western wall survives intact from the 18th century and contains a blocked original window that is now protected by an early-20th century lean-to range of storage sheds. The eastern range of the courtyard may also have been demolished in the 17th century, but its remaining wall contains wooden rails to secure a shelf or bench and the two missing buildings were almost certainly designed as conservatories and potting sheds. A blocked arch probably supplied heat from a small boiler room which survives to the north-east, and the garden room fireplace of 1922 is likely to have been a later insertion. The narrow proportions of the covered way coupled with evidence of an original, lower roof suggest it was always a cloister-like passage. The remaining walls illustrate the sophisticated nature of Georgian country house gardens even on relatively modest sites such as this where evidence rarely survives (S1).