Thought to be the oldest surviving house in Hickling, traces of its original construction are still visible; the property is Listed.
The Old Bowling Green Public House is referred to briefly as a ‘retailer of ales’ in a village history written for the May-Time Festival in 1975 but, until recently, it was thought to be just a story. However, an article in the Leicester Journal in 1835 refers to an auction sale of, amongst other things, a beer house, “known by the sign of the bowling green”.
Historic England Listing:
HICKLING THE GREEN SK62NE 6/90 25.9.79 Bowling Green Cottage – II Cottage. Timber frame probably late C17 with a wing of C18 (north end) and later C19 (south end). Timber framing with later brick infill panels part rendered. Brick wing. Pantile roofs. End stacks to wings, truncated ridge stack to timber-framed part. T-plan, the timber framed part being the leg to the east. Two storeys. The timber framed part is box-framed and has an original doorway on the south side. On the north side is a lead fire insurance plaque which shows a wheatsheaf and reads “FIRE LIFE, FARMER”. There is a later ground-floor window on each side. The east gable apex is in later brickwork and contains a segmental headed window. The extended wall plates on this gable suggest that the building once extended for a further cell in this direction. The roof of this wing appears to have been raised. Interior: the timber frame appears to extend into the wing giving a third room, a complete frame with bracing can be seen at 1st-floor level in the north wing. The original baffle entrance from the south is set against the central fireplace which has a bressumer on 2 heck posts and a short heck screen on the south side only. The bressumer supports a complete tapering firehood visible in the room above. Behind the fireplace is a passage staircase with framed sides. Many of the timbers are stop-chamfered. On the 1st floor is an early plank door with longitudinal moulding. The north wing contains some re-used timber including a studded partition and a bressumer across the north end forming a kind of smoke bay. Deeds of 1830 refer to “the former licenced premises” indicating the building’s former use as a public house.
