History
Kingston upon Thames, historically in Surrey, was an important market town, port and river crossing from the early medieval period, while there is evidence of Saxon settlement and of activity dating from the prehistoric period and of Roman occupation. It is close to the important historic royal estates at Hampton Court, Bushy Park, Richmond and Richmond Park. The old core of the town, around All Saints Church (C14 and C15, on an earlier site) and Market Place, with its recognisably medieval street pattern, is ‘the best preserved of its type in outer London’ (Pevsner and Cherry, London: South, 1983 p. 307). Kingston thrived first as an agricultural and market town and on its historic industries of malting, brewing and tanning, salmon fishing and timber exporting, before expanding rapidly as a suburb after the arrival of the railway in the 1860s. In the later C19 it become a centre of local government, and in the early C20 became an important shopping and commercial centre. Its rich diversity of buildings and structures from all periods reflect the multi-facetted development of the town.
Details
C17 altered. Originally 2, 2 storeyed cottages, each one bay wide. Third storey added C19. Ground floors now combined into a single shop but upper floors are still separate. There is a modern shop front on the ground floors. The upper floors are rendered, with a band at 2nd floor level. Although the roofs were raised in the C19, some of the original C17 principal timbers survive. Both houses had double roofs. Tie beams survive at front and rear in both as well as some of the original principal rafters, also, in the northern truss of the back roof in No 15, a raking queen strut, and, in the back slope of the front roof of No 13, a butt purlin. Also surviving in No 15 (above ground floor level) the original brick chimney stack with grouped rectangular flues, and, just below the tie beam of the northern roof truss at the rear, a 3-light timber-framed window with diamond mullions.
Listing NGR: TQ1794469290
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16/02/2016
