The Timothy Bradley House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a Historic Resources Document of the Connecticut Historical Commission. [‡]
Description
The Timothy Bradley House, constructed on a rectangular plan with its ridge parallel to the street, has a pitched roof with a brick center chimney which straddles the ridge. It has a symmetrical five-bay, nine window facade with twelve-over-twelve sash. Its gables have five windows suggesting a five-room plan. The exterior has clapboard siding and features a single-entry door with surrounding molding capped by a smooth frieze and projecting cornice. This entablature may be a nineteenth-century addition.
Significance
The Timothy Bradley House was first recorded by the Colonial Dames about 1923 and dated c.1730 by J. Frederick Kelly who did the measured drawings. Land records at that time traced ownership of house to Rachel Swaine, daughter of Daniel Swaine, the original owner of the land, who married Joseph Browne in 1726. Recent research of land records seem generally to corroborate this. The house was sold to Timothy Bradley in 1778 and remained in the Bradley family nearly a century, thus acquiring its historic name. The W.P.A. survey dates the house c.1797 but gives no supporting evidence for this date. Architecturally, the Timothy Bradley House represents the typical full two-story New England house as it evolved at the end of the Second Period (1691-1720) (Keith). The Timothy Bradley House is significant in Branford's collection of eighteenth-century houses for its integrity of location, design, materials and workmanship.
References
Colonial Dames of America. Connecticut. "Old Houses of Connecticut." 1900-1962.
W.P.A. Federal Writers Project. Census of Old or Distinctive Buildings in the State of Connecticut, c.1936. No. 11.
Kelly, J. Frederick. The Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut. Dover Pub.: New York 1963, p.50.
Keith, Elmer D. Some Notes on Early Connecticut Architecture. The Antiquarian and Landmarks Society, Inc. of Connecticut: Hartford, Conn., Second Ed., 1976, p.18.
‡ S. Ardis Abbott and Robert B. Hurd, Architectural Preservation Trust of Branford, Inc., Timothy Bradley House, Historic Resources Inventory, Connecticut Historical Commission, resource document, 1984.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
Bradley Street