Building record 953/0/22 - Nos.7,9 & 11 High Street & Attached Outbuilding (Vanderplank House)

A row of C17 and C18 stone and brick buildings with later alterations, in use as dwellings and commercial premises.

{1} Three houses and shop. Mid C18 and C19. Coursed squared ironstone and painted brick. Corrugated iron, thatch and slate roofs with brick ridge and end stacks. 2 storeys and attic. Carriageway to left. No. 7 has 4-panel door with reeded pilaster surround. On ground floor to right of door C19 sash window; C20 casement window with timber lintel to left; C19 casement windows with timber lintels above. Corrugated iron roof and coped stone gables with kneelers. No. 9: 4-window range, has C19 door to right end, C19 canted bay window to left of door and 12-pane sash windows with moulded stone sills, surround and lintels with keyblocks. Datestone inscribed M/IE 1752 between upper left windows. Part-thatched roof and brick ridge stack. No. 11, to right: C19 painted brick projecting front range of 2 storeys. C19 shop front and door to left with hood mould, and 2 four-pane sash windows above. Slate roof and bargeboarded gable. Interior No. 9: boxed beams. Known as Vanderplank House.

{3} Undated photo;

{4} 5a to 11 High Street is an evolved row of historic buildings that appears to have origins in the early C18 or earlier as part of a farmstead. 9 and 11 High Street were probably a farmhouse built in two phases with the west end bay, now shared by 7 and 9 High Street, added in 1752 (datestone). This mid-C18 end adjoins a formerly separate building that was probably originally in agricultural use and has been partially incorporated within 7 High Street. The other part of the building, across a carriageway, is 5a High Street and the building is of C17 or C18 date and may have been the principal entrance to a former farmyard to the rear.

9 High Street, known latterly as ‘Vandyplank’ and 'Vanderplank House’, may be associated with a Vanderplank family that appears prominently in early C19 records of Long Buckby. Samuel Vanderplank was a prominent local Gentleman Farmer. Another possible derivation of the building name is the residency of John Vanderplank, a 55-year-old clothworker, who was on the 1841 census and who may have lived in the house. The census of that year shows his neighbours as agricultural labourers and graziers.

The adaptation of the buildings into separate dwellings had taken place by the late C19 as shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1885, by which time the east end of the building (11 High Street) had been built out towards the road edge, presumably as a shopfront. To the rear, there are attached outbuildings and a clearly delineated boundary with the plot to the east. The map shows a structure to the rear of 5a High Street attached to a set of buildings around a yard that may well be a farm or smallholding.

The buildings have been altered in the C19 and C20 as their uses have changed, notably to 5a and 7 which have been converted to dwellings and then commercial premises, and the ground floor of 11 High Street. An extensive rebuilding of 11 High Street took place in the late C20 around the time that the buildings were first listed. The plot behind 5a was redeveloped as a supermarket in the late C20 by which time 5a was in use as a shop. 7 (and part of 9) was adapted to a dental surgery in the late C20.

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 6/213 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), F04 p.84 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN44900.

<3> Photographs of buildings in Long Buckby (Photographs). SNN112637.

<4> English Heritage, Designation Advice Report, Case Number: 1481775 (Report). SNN113190.

Record last edited

Oct 4 2022 4:45PM