Building record RAT 066 - 1, 2 & 3 Top Road

The property known as 1, 2 & 3 Top Road is a substantial timber-framed and thatched building lying on high ground approximately 600 metres south-west of Rattlesden village centre. It now forms part of a modern linear housing development but was formerly isolated in the landscape and lay immediately opposite Hilltop Farm. Although much of the framing is concealed the building was evidently constructed as a barn in the late-17th or early-18th century and is shown as such on the Rattlesden tithe map of 1839. There is structural evidence of a full-height barn door in the centre of the rear elevation, but the map shows what appears to be a porch on the front elevation. The barn is not specifically mentioned in the accompanying tithe apportionment but lay in Barn Meadow and belonged to Hilltop Farm. Internal partitions of clay lump were inserted during the 1840s or 1850s to convert the barn into three identical cottages, each with its own central chimney dividing two rooms on each storey. Early barn conversions of this kind are rare but not unknown, and there is another example near Rattlesden church. The Ordnance Survey of 1903 shows the three cottages and the existing row of brick outbuildings to the rear, but the present lean-to kitchens are absent and were added subsequently. No.3 to the left (west) retains its original mid-19th century fire surround, door case and windows and represents a rare architectural survival, but nos. 2 and 3 were amalgamated and largely stripped of original fittings in the late-20th century. The original door case of no.1 to the right does survive however, and it is unfortunate that the architectural symmetry of the façade was spoiled by removing the door of the central cottage (no.2) to leave only a scar (S1).