(Grade II listed in 1956 and now listed as "20 and 22 Rodden Row")
(Grade II listed in 1956 and now listed as "20 and 22 Rodden Row")
The 1889 Ordnance Survey map shows a solid line of houses from the corner up to the entrance to the Dansel yard: the sdpace on the left was once a cottage that has long since disappeared, with only the vestiges of its much lower roofline as evidence that it had ever been there. It had gone by the time of the 1953 Historic Monuments Inventory, when these cottages were described as "three tenements ... built probably early in the 18th century." The pair (not a trio) are the only three-storey thatched houses in the village, but as the Appreciation comments, it"does not look out of scale because it is built on lower ground and the roof line follows that of the two storey terrace." The old builder knew their territory.
No's 22 and 24 (on the left, with the porch) were converted into one cottage by a Mr & Mrs Finch. During the work, a 1729 farthing was found in the house, and the lath walls were found to be covered in layewrs of newspapers, cloth and wallpaper. Papers dating from 1872 were also found during the building work, and on the kitchen wall were measurements for a coffin. The block-up window above the porch has been re-opened, and the ground floor window has been extended to take the place of the left-hand door. The Appreciation says that this was "apparently once the Post Office", but is confusing it with no 26 on the corner, or the fact that a telephone kiosk once stood next door.
No. 20 (on the right), once the home of James Mundy, a naval pensioner, was restored by Mr & Mrs Wood ~ as the first couple to take up a lease on a property for restoration, they were offered a peacock for Christmas lunch by Lady Agnew for the Estate: it duly arrived, trussed for the oven, with the feathers separately packed. The restoration made the columns of the Dorset Echo at the time. According to the Appreciation, the windows and arches are later than the original structure, though one local resident believes the window glass to be the oldest in the village. The house has changed hands several times, most recently in 2004.
In each case, the houses were in very poor condition before the new occupants took on the restoration. According to one of the people who carried out the restoration, coach drivers on excursions at that time would tell their passengers that Abbotsbury was "a dying village".