NHER 41041 (Building record) - 9 Church Street

February 2004. Visit.
Gingerbread Cottage is opposite the west end of the church. It is clad in brick under a pantiled roof, and there is weatherboard on the north gable wall. Inside there is a timber frame and between the frame and the brick there may be clay lump. There are thatching ties on some of the rafters, indicating that the original roof was thatch.
The house appears to have been built as a medieval open hall house, with cross passage within the hall and twin service rooms to the south. There is no precise dating evidence for the construction of this building, but it is likely to date to around 1500. At some time later in the sixteenth century the brick chimney stack was constructed, and a floor/ceiling inserted in the hall together with a plank and muntin screen. This is at present the only known example of a screen of this kind surviving in a Norfolk house.
See (S1) in file.
A. Cattermole (NLA), 15 December 2004.

This medieval house is stated in 1611 to have been owned previously by Old Buckenham Priory. Post-Dissolution owners are traced back to 1542. In 1578 this was John Smith, weaver, fined for making a window into his southern neighbour's yard perhaps to light his loom. From 1864 to 1883 it was owned by John Gall who clothed much of New Buckenham in red brick.
See (S2).
M. Dennis (NLA), 11 May 2006.

A similar (but considerably larger) screen is known from Manor Farm, Pulham Market (NHER 13945).
A. Cattermole (NLA), 3 September 2010.

(S3) argues that the service rooms were not roofed over as part of the original construction as the tie-beam above the cross passage screen would have been at chest height across the entry to the chamber. In addition, (S3) argues that the house may originally have had an extra cell, in the form of a parlour, to the north.
A. Cattermole (HES), 17 March 2011.