The History Of Hawthorn Cottage

This house has been acknowledged for many years as one of the oldest houses in Preston, but extensive restoration work during 2003-2004 brought to light several interesting elements which had been previously unknown.

The cottage was originally a sixteenth century, single storey building, probably comprising only what is now the sitting room and the dining room. This would follow a traditional building plan for this part of the country at that time, with one room in which the occupants cooked and spent time during the day - a room which at that time was known as an "Eldin" - and another either for animals or for sleeping. Some evidence of this lies in the remains of an old bread oven, which is now walled in to the right of the inglenook fireplace. It has a domed roof, which was constructed with hand made bricks and it must have been heated from a fire lit in the deep alcove at floor level in the inglenook. When this alcove was discovered the present builders referred to it as a "Snoot". This arrangement would have been in use until the early seventeenth century when the large inglenook fireplace was built.

The thickness of all the walls in both the sitting room and the dining room suggest that they were all originally outside walls and this would explain the present close proximity of Rosemary Cottage, which sits at right angles to Hawthorn Cottage. It is thought that Rosemary Cottage dates to a similar period and was a barn on the property, which also included stable and out buildings now converted into Croft Edge.

In the early seventeenth century the house was upgraded and a more modern fireplace installed. It is believed that the fireplace dates to approximately 1620 since there are several old houses in the dales with fireplaces of similar design to the one here, dating from around this time. The arch over the inglenook is constructed in the same way as the old packhorse bridges. It is nine feet across with a central keystone. All the stonework is original except for one piece in the arch, which had been damaged by twentieth century plumbing and consequently needed replacing.

To the left of the fireplace is a fire window, which was designed with walls angled asymmetrically to shed light directly into the inglenook. The window sill had always been visible from the outside of the house, but on the inside there was no sign of a window until the restoration. When the old plaster was removed from the inner walls the beam was revealed over the window alcove and the alcove itself was found to be filled with stones. When these were pulled out the wallpaper was still in place on the angled walls, as if someone had made a decision to block the window and had just gathered stones and filled it in. Within the rubble above the window was found the small brass badge, which now hangs with other artifacts on the inglenook wall.

During the twentieth century, the house had become two cottages and the older staircase, made of stone, ran up from what is now the sitting room. Unfortunately, it ran in the same direction as the wooden staircase in the other side of the house, so it had to be removed and the wooden one retained. At the moment the lovely old stone treads are used as a pathway round the vegetable garden, but one day it is hoped that they will be incorporated back into the house as window sills to a conservatory on the south side of the house. When this stone staircase was removed and the wall dismantled, the Eldin returned to its right proportions and the fireplace was once again the focal point of the room. The removal of the staircase also revealed that a door had existed directly opposite the door into the garden - this blocked up doorway must have been the original door to the outside of the house on the north side.

The first floor of the house was added during the eighteenth century and has a different atmosphere, with higher ceilings to the bedrooms. Until the restoration, each south-facing bedroom had a fireplace, but the other rooms had had no form of heating until the nineteen seventies when central heating was first installed. The long landing was achieved by knocking down the wall that had divided the house into two cottages. In so doing, the end of a vast elm beam was discovered with the initials "M.A." carved into the wood. This beam runs over the hallway downstairs and still retains its bark; the end of it has been left exposed on the landing, so that "M.A." can be seen. The same initials are also carved into a gateway next to Croft Edge, with a heart and the accompanying initials "W.W." M. A. certainly left his mark for posterity, but we shall never know if the course of true love ran smoothly with W.W.

The restoration of Hawthorn Cottage and the conversion of the barn into what is now known as Croft Edge, began just before Christmas 2002 and was completed in February 2004. There were times when it seemed that there would never be an end to masonry dust and the smell of plaster, but it was fascinating to strip an old building back to its skeleton and get an idea of its development. It is hoped that guests will enjoy staying in this old house, take care on the steep stairs, watch out for the slightly uneven places, but above all, reflect on the fact that although much has changed during the past five hundred year, the view of Pen Hill from the windows has remained pretty much the same.