Summary
House, formerly two cottages, late C18 / early C19. Converted to one property in around 1961 by the poet Charles Tomlinson.
Reasons for Designation
Brook Cottage in the Ozleworth Valley, Gloucestershire is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a representative example of vernacular building in the area including the use of Cotswold stone roofing;
* the historic layout as two cottages can still be read, and the good survival of features including the two winder staircases substantiate this;
* for unusual details such as the timber decoration to the windows and hoppers, and the representation of local craft skills in the hand-forged door and window catches.
Historic interest:
* for its strong association with the celebrated poet and translator Charles Tomlinson, who lived at Brook Cottage with his family from 1958.
* as part of the development of the Ozleworth Park estate in the late C18.
Group value:
* with other listed buildings on the Ozleworth Park estate, of which it was once part, including Ozleworth Park and the Church of St Nicholas of Myra, both of which are listed Grade II*.
History
Brook Cottage is located approximately two miles south-west of Wotton-under-Edge at the foot of the Cotswold Hills in the Ozleworth Valley. Less than a mile to the north-west is Newark Park, and less than half a mile to the north is Ozleworth Park; in their entirety they formed part of the manor of Ozleworth. The manor was leased from the Abbey of Kingswood, which was dissolved in 1538 when it came into the ownership of Sir Nicholas Poyntz of Acton Court, Gloucestershire (1510-1556); he built a hunting lodge at Newark Park in the 1550s. In 1722 the manor was sold to the Harding family. The house at Ozleworth Park was begun in the C18 by George Miller (d.1787). It remained part of the Newark Park estate until 1821, at which time the north part of the house was built by William Miller (d.1846); both George and William had been High Sheriff of Gloucestershire. In 1849 Ozleworth Park was purchased by Sir John Rolt (1804-1871), who added a service wing to the house and lived there until his death, when the estate, including farms and cottages, was passed to his son.
In comparison to the main house and the adjacent Church of St Nicholas of Myra, little is known about the history of the other buildings on the Ozleworth Estate. Brook Cottage is depicted on the 1838 Tithe map as one building with smaller north and south wings but is described in the apportionment as two tenements and garden. The building is shown in more detail on the 1882 Ordnance Survey (OS) as a symmetrical pair of cottages with ancillary bays to the end of each. Sir John Rolt’s will of 1868 refers to Brook Cottage although it seems reasonable to assume that the building was always intended as two cottages to be inhabited by estate workers. The groom and gamekeeper are known to have been living there when the Ozleworth Estate was put up for auction in July 1947. Brook Cottage is described in the sales particulars as ‘a pair of picturesque cottages’ with good gardens. One cottage had a living room with range, a small sitting room with a fireplace, and two bedrooms, one with a fireplace. The other cottage had two living rooms with fireplaces and three small bedrooms. Both had a scullery and attics. An accompanying photograph shows two small rooflights on the western roof slope. The two cottages (known as Brook Cottage and Bridge Cottage) were sold in October 1947.
In July 1958 Brook Cottage was bought by the poet Charles Tomlinson, CBE (1927-2015), followed in May 1961 by Bridge Cottage. Tomlinson and his wife Brenda knocked the two cottages together and lived here at Brook Cottage until his death. Born in Stoke on Trent, at high school Tomlinson was taught by European teachers and read European literature, leading to a lifelong passion for language and translated poetry. In 1944 he met Brenda Raybould (b.1928; m.1948), and the following year won an exhibition to Queens’ College, Cambridge; despite being unhappy there, in his final year he was introduced to modernist American poets which fostered an interest in transatlantic poetry. In 1956 Tomlinson became a lecturer in English at the University of Bristol, where he stayed for 36 years. Two years later the Tomlinsons made their home at Brook Cottage, and it became the centre from which they travelled around the world meeting and collaborating with fellow poets and artists. Frequent visits to America followed the publication of ‘Seeing is Believing’ in New York; after being rejected in Britain it was reissued in 1960, followed in 1963 by ‘A Peopled Landscape’. Their travel continued, as did encounters and friendships with the likes of Georgia O’Keefe, Ezra Pound and Octavio Paz. Works in the 1970s included ‘Written on Water’ and ‘The Way In’. ‘The Flood’, written in 1981, recounts the dramatic flooding of Brook Cottage. The Tomlinsons received many guests at Brook Cottage including Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, James Lees Milne, John Berger, and Sir Nicholas Mander. Bruce Chatwin and Elizabeth Chandler bought Holwell Farm, 300m from Brook Cottage, in 1966, and Tomlinson and Chatwin often spent time together when they were not travelling. Tomlinson’s later collections continued to be influenced by the Mediterranean and Gloucestershire and he also edited and translated many other works. His poems won international recognition and he received many prizes in Europe and America; he was made a CBE in 2001. He died at Brook Cottage in September 2015; Brenda died in 2019 and they are both buried at the Church of St Nicholas of Myra.
Details
House, formerly two cottages, late C18 / early C19. Converted to one property in around 1961 by the poet Charles Tomlinson.
MATERIALS: stone construction, lime rendered. Cotswold stone-tile hipped roof with brick axial and gable-end stacks; short rendered stacks to end bays. Timber-framed windows with metal casements with leaded lights.
PLAN: rectangular in plan with smaller bays at each end. The house reflects its previous layout as two cottages, with two winder staircases against the rear wall. The end bays are used for ancillary purposes (kitchen and utility) whilst the two halves of the building – the party wall remains in situ – are variously sub-divided.
EXTERIOR: Brook Cottage is orientated north-west to south-east with its principal elevation facing south-west. It has two storeys with attics and is five bays long with additional single-storey end bays. Two open-fronted porches with stone-tile hipped gable roofs are placed symmetrically on the principal elevation and have timber plank doors with wrought-iron fittings. Windows flank each porch on the ground floor and above them to the first floor; the porch to the north has an additional window above. Each window has two casements, and each window head has a cut-out timber decoration of four semi-circular arches. The single-storey end bays each have a timber plank door and adjacent two-casement window. The rear elevation is blind apart from a small window on the ground floor; the end elevations are also blind. Historic rainwater goods survive, including bracketed square-section lead gutters and conical cast-iron hoppers; on the front elevation at eaves level there are two decorative hoppers with scalloped decoration.
INTERIOR: the house has two entrances on its south-west side into the present sitting room and dining room. To the north of the sitting room is the utility room which has a stone-flag floor which continues into the sitting room. The sitting room has a single roughly-chamfered ceiling beam, fitted cupboards on the west side, and fireplaces at the north and south ends; that to the south has a decoratively-carved and plain painted timber surround with floriated columns and frieze. The fireplace is flanked by a door to a winder staircase on its left and a door through to a short corridor on the right. This leads to the dining room which has a further single ceiling beam (no chamfer) and a fireplace at the south end. This fireplace is bare timber and decoratively carved and has a cast-iron surround with tiled cheeks and a heavy timber lintel. Again, doors lead to a winder staircase to the left (with a cupboard below) and through to the kitchen to the right. The kitchen has a quarry-tile floor.
The first floor is accessed via steps up to a planked door leading to timber winder staircases located in the eastern corners of the dining room and sitting room. On the first floor are three bedrooms, that to the north being the largest and with a blocked fireplace on the north wall. Between the north bedroom and bedroom two, is a narrow room with a close-studded infilled timber partition on the north wall. The bedrooms have chamfered ceiling beams and elm planked floorboards (some over 30cm wide). Within the attics, accessed by a continuation of the southern winder stair, are large principal rafters and purlins which appear to be early fabric; some common rafters have been replaced.
All internal and cupboard doors are timber ledge and plank, with hand-made wrought-iron fittings including thumb-latches and strap hinges. The opening casement windows also have wrought-iron catches. All other joinery – such as architraves and skirtings – are timber and have simple mouldings.
