Morley Cottages

Morley Cottages is a house that was later converted into a pair of cottages. It dates from the 16th century, possibly incorporating an earlier core, and has been altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. The building features a timber frame with mud and stud, coursed limestone rubble, red brick, and render. It has a pantile roof with one raised coped gable and one half hip, which was originally thatched. There are single axial ridge and gable stacks. The original layout was a lobby entry plan.

The structure is two storeys high with a five-bay front that has a dentillated eaves course. The central doorway is blocked, with a pair of sliding glazing bar sashes and a plain door to the left, and a glazing bar sash with a half-glazed 19th-century door to the right. All openings feature segmental brick heads. On the first floor, there are two small glazing bar casements at the eaves. The coursed limestone rubble is only present in patches up to the plinth level and has been extensively altered. The rear wall also has a stone plinth, which is lower to the right, and the original mud and stud wall is now mostly underbuilt in brick on the left side and to about half its height on the right side. The framing is of the reversed assembly type.

Inside, the building retains a chamfered girder with a shield stop, and an 18th-century softwood girder has been inserted into the former open hall. The original parlour end features two diamond stepped chamfered girders and an early 19th-century wooden overmantle with roundels above the kitchen range. On the first floor, timber bay posts remain with straight braces to the wall plate, which has regular small holes in the underside for earlier framing. The central tie beam is arched and braced, and the 16th-century clasped purlin roof is still intact.