Manor Road, Fishponds, Bristol

AOC Archaeology Group was commissioned to examine a pair of early 19th century cottages in advance of restoration. At the time of recording the property was in moderately poor condition.

The house was historically two properties; a pair of cottages with a single room on each floor but had been modified into one property in the mid-lat 20th century. The property faces onto Manor Road and is a two-bay two storey building constructed primarily of local stone roughly coursed with the largest pieces used on the quoins of the doorway of Cottage 1. The eastern cottage has a curved bay window on both floors. The roof is tile and both cottages are furnished with a chimney stack to the west. No internal finishes within the property are present apart from floors. The stairs rise at the rear of the property, and are lit by a small window with a wide brick reveal, tiled at sill and lintel. This window is one of only two in the rear of the property.

Originally, the ground floor is likely to have been used as the living space, including cooking facilities, whereas the upper room would have been the bedroom. There may have been washhouses, privies etc, in the yard or garden area to the rear. The cottages were probably originally workers cottages, possibly mine workers from the Kingswood coalfield, which extended this far by 1800. The use of local stone in the building and the lack of architectural details makes determining the exact date of construction difficult.

AOC Project Officer: Les Capon
Client: Private owner