(Grade II listed in 1956 as "no's 10 and 12")
(Grade II listed in 1956 as "no's 10 and 12")
All three of these cottages, along with no.6, are described in the listings register as "18th century with much refenestration", which is the technical way of saying that the windows have been altered since the cottages were built. It's a word that crops up quite a lot in the register.
No 12, on the left, has always been a private house, occupied by Mr Limm who worked for the Estate and as a chimney sweep (the last resident sweep in the village), then by Roger Pitman, a professional musician in the UK and overseas, from 1990 to 1995. It must be one of the smallest cottages in the village, consisting of a single room on each floor with lean-to extensions at the back to provide a kitchen, shower room and toilet. The garden is perhaps three times the size of the cottage. The house has been re-thatched since 1973, and no longer has the dipped overhang above the door. The present occupant is an artist working in a variety of media.
No 10, in the centre, has been a sign-writer's studio, where customers could also buy glassware from the business at Wheelwrights after no. 14 changed hands in 1989. From 1994 to 2004, it was the home of "Abbotsbury Bears and Friends", opened by the then owners of the Old School House Tea Rooms in the square. After lying empty for a year or more (with its sign still visible in the right-hand photograph), it was taken over as a photographer's studio and crafts gallery in 2006, and now operates as the Graham V Bundy Gallery. It has also been re-thatched, presumably at the same time as no. 12 ~ the ridge of the new thatch is considerably lower than the original, perhaps because the original thatch would have been built up, layer upon layer, over the years until it became simply too thick and too heavy for the roof timbers. Compare the roof line in the left-hand picture with that on the right. The new. straighter, edge of thatch has meant that this cottage no longer has the picturesque "eyebrows" over the first floor windows.
No.8, on the right (only just included in the Appreciation photograph, above left) has, since 1973, been incorporated into a single house with 6 Rodden Row and greatly modernised since the late 1990's.