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Summary

Grade II listed late 19th century pair of attached estate cottages designed by Norman Shaw

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1375644: MERRY WAYS AND NORMAN COTTAGE - ERROR IN NAME (no longer current)

Monument Type(s):

• ESTATE COTTAGE (Late 19th century - 1891 AD to 1891 AD)
• SEMI DETACHED HOUSE (Late 19th century - 1891 AD to 1891 AD)

Full Description

Lesok and Norman Cottage are a pair of semi-detached estate cottages designed by the architect Richard Norman Shaw. They were commissioned in 1891 by Lloyd Harry Baxendale who owned the Greenham estate, and are of brick with a jettied tile-hung first floor <1><2>. They are first depicted on the Second Epoch Ordnance Survey mapping of 1899, within a wooded area called Oak Plantation, close to the village school <3>. This is at the top of Pile Hill, the road leading up from Newbury.

The cottages have been variously named Pilehill Cottages <3> and Norman Cottages <4>, and when listed at Grade II in 1998, Merry Ways (northern cottage) and Norman Cottage (southern cottage) <5>. In the early 21st century, the northern cottage is called Lesok Cottage <8>.

Several alterations were made to Lesok Cottage in the late 20th century, including additional windows and a reconfiguration of internal rooms through the removal and insertion of partition walls <7>. Original features were identified as part of a heritage statement carried out in 2018 to inform a planning application, including the quarry tiled entrance hall, stairwell and staircase, skirting and picture rails, four-panelled doors and most of its chimneypieces. The planning application, which was accepted, was to build a single storey extension to the north-west side of the cottage and make internal alterations to the ground floor <9>.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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