Restoration of Old Cottage at Steep Petersfielddetails

STEEP, HAMPSHIRE. From a water-colour drawing by Walter Tyndale.

The only district where stone-slated roofs were hipped was in the heart of the tile counties. Here there are a number, the builders merely following the tradition of tile-roofing. In one example near Crawley, North Sussex, (page 35), and in another just over the border, at Chiddingfold, Surrey (page 37), the hipped ends have the same little gablets that occur in so many of the Surrey cottages, and less often in Kent and Hampshire. These grew out of the manner of constructing the hipped ends. As no ridge-board was used, “it was therefore obviously inconvenient to run the hip-rafters together to a point, and they were therefore run each to about nine inches below the junction of the pair of rafters. This of course caused the little gablet,” (“Old Cottage and Domestic Architecture, South-West Surrey,” Ralph Nevill, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A.) and gave a piquant effect to the ends, as seen in the drawings facing page 40.