Briar Cottage

Briar Cottage is a 17th-century cottage, dated 1635, located on the north side of Back Lane in Holywell-cum-Needingworth. The building features a two-unit plan, although it may have originally been larger. It is a single storey with an attic, constructed from timber-frame with rough-cast and a thatched roof. The cottage has a parapet gable made of two-inch local brick and an end stack on the right side. There are two gabled dormers with horizontal sliding sash windows that have glazing bars, along with three ground-floor windows of varying sizes, also with glazing bars. The entrance is through a plank door. An external stack is located on the left gable, where a portion of the cottage was demolished to make way for a weather-boarded studio with a pantile roof, built in 1920 by local watercolourists, the Kings. Inside, the cottage features a large inglenook hearth with two 'salt' recesses, stop-chamfered ceiling beams, and an enclosed staircase.