NHER 40616 (Building record) - No. 3, Oak Cottage and Priory Cottage (formerly Yellow Cottage), Market Place

(S1) notes that two of the houses in this row of three have a crownpost roof with the collar purlin used as a ridge, and there is an inserted ovolo mullioned window.

Jettied house on south side of market place.
Called R81 to R83 in (S2).

Date unknown. Building survey.
Oak Cottage seems to be part of the ground floor and first floor great chamber of a house built by Old Buckenham Priory in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The fact that the building was always floored and heated by a chimney (there is no sooting on the roof timbers, and evidence of a ceiling in the upper chamber) suggests a post medieval date, but the massive timbers and simple soffit-tenon joists indicate a date in the first part of the sixteenth century. This is supported by the documentary evidence that there was a building with the same features on this site by 1529.
See report (S3) in file.
A. Cattermole (NLA), 20th July 2004.

January 2004. Building survey.
(S4) in file sees the western end of the jettied range as a service cell and cross passage of a house of the 1520s
E. Rose (NLA), 30 April 2005.

Previously NHER 9200 context 12.

Built over part of the market place when it was narrowed (probably late in the 15th century) this range is 1st documented in 1542 though a former owner, Thomas Wellys, is named. From the 1630s to 1711 it was owned by the leading family of Barber, butchers and graziers; it lay near the butchery in the southeast corner of the market place. Subdivision into three cottages had occurred by 1840.
See (S5).
M. Dennis (NLA), 11 May 2006.

May 2004. Dendrochronological analysis.
Two samples were obtained from Oak Cottage and two further samples from Yellow Cottage. The two datable samples to bark edge were each felled in the spring of 1473, and were utilised green, suggesting that construction took place shortly after this date. The dated timbers are derived from the floor, which is currently interpreted as being integral to the building, but this needs to be checked.
See (S6).
A. Cattermole (NLA), 10 July 2009.