(Grade II listed in 1956)
(Grade II listed in 1956)
The mid-19th century house appears in the 1939 trade directory as "refreshment rooms", run by Mrs Harry Pittman. Her son Ted lived here all his life, working as a woodman and gravedigger on the Estate. (Long before 1939, Elizabeth Critchell was listed as a "boarding house keeper" in the 1901 census, and as running "refreshment rooms" in the 1903 directory ~ but as Abbotsbury houses were not numbered at that date, she could just as probably lived next door in no. 19.)
No. 17 may seem to have been built at the same time as no. 15 on its left, but the dressed stones at the join of the two houses suggests that this was an infilled property. There is a theory that at one time there may have been an entrance to the Abbey precinct here, or perhaps to the cottages, mentioned below, which once stood between here and the parish church.
When the present occupant started renovation work on his house, he discovered the flue for his neighbour's Aga behind his fireplace, he uncovered the tops of former walls in odd positions, and he found a void between this house and no.19 The fact that Rodden Row changes direction slightly at this point might not be obvious from the road, but it makes for an oddly-shaped bathroom at the rear of the house.
Behind the house, as mentioned, once stood an array of tiny cottages, all of which had disappeared before the 19th century fire which put an end to the Rodden Row smithy, and the original Swan Inn.