The Keep, Back Street
(Photograph (left) ~ c 1940: Simmons Aerofilms)
(Photograph (left) ~ c 1940: Simmons Aerofilms)
Plans for the house were drawn up in 1980, and the architects were well aware of what could go wrong ~ "A new cottage replica could be built at high level ... This would be an extremely difficult site to handle. The existing barns on the lane could be included with the site for garaging or storage." The architects knew what they were up against because they were Messrs William Bertram and Fell, the very architects who had drawn up the Appreciation.
Conditions attached to the building were strict ~ everything facing the road had to match the existing buildings, which at that time meant only the traditional cottages of Back Street; the stone and slate had to be local, and the angle of the roof, even though it was to be slated, had to reflect the angle of a traditional thatched roof, resulting in a fine array of exposed beamwork. The Scandinavian origins of the husband of the first couple to live in The Keep resulted in a very well-insulated property when it was handed over to them in 1982.
The barns in front of the house were once a butchery business and on the land behind the house are the remains (old stonework and a drainage channel) of what might once have been the slaughterhouse for the business, run by Albert Stokes,who ~ to judge from the postcard below ~ spent one part of his career working for the other butcher in the village, Mr Hodder, at 4 Market Street.
