Hope Cottage

Hope Cottage

Hope Cottage is a timber-framed and rendered cottage, painted white overall, with a thatched roof. It has one gault brick chimney and one red brick chimney. The building has a simple rectangular plan, one room deep, aligned north-south and facing west onto Button End. A small rectangular porch at the north end was probably added in the early 1970s.

The cottage is one storey with an attic under a steeply pitched thatched roof featuring three eyebrow dormers of various sizes on the front elevation. The ground floor has four windows of varying size: a single window, two three-light casements, and an oriel window, all with metal frames and applied leaded lights.

The south gable end has a projecting red brick chimney, two small attic windows either side, and a three-light window at ground-floor level to the east. The rear elevation has a central two-storey section with the thatch sweeping down to ground-floor level at either end. The upper storey has two single-light casement windows and a three-light window in the centre, all with applied leaded lights. The ground floor is lit by a variety of openings: a 20th-century doorway with a small single-light window to the south of it; a small oriel window similar to the one on the front elevation; 20th-century wooden-framed patio doors cutting into the sole plate; and a narrow door opening above the sole plate at the northern end under the thatch. The south elevation has a gabled, tiled-roof porch with a two-light window in the gable end. On the north gable end is a 20th-century single-storey porch under a tiled roof with a Tudor-arch doorway.

The interior of the ground floor follows a simple two-bay plan, one room deep, with a later partition at the south end for a kitchen. The two principal rooms contain large back-to-back brick fireplaces. The fireplace in the southernmost room has a curved bressumer, an inglenook, and a bricked-up opening believed to be the remains of a bread oven. The fireplaces have been partially rebuilt using modern red bricks and have concrete lintels behind their timber bresummers.

The cottage has a largely complete, exposed timber frame. Most of the sole plate survives except where patio doors have been cut into it in the southern principal room and where an entrance doorway has been cut at the north end. Much of the wall plate survives and can be seen internally at the south end in the staircase area. On the rear elevation it is missing in the central section where the roof line has been modified to provide extra space.

The building has an exposed coupled rafter roof. In the central section the roof height has been extended and a rafter partially removed to create this space. The purlin has been replaced with 20th-century timber along the east side of the roof and partially replaced on the west side in the northernmost bedroom. The second collar beam from the north is also a 20th-century replacement.

The walls have primary bracing, visible in the northern principal room, and secondary studs. There are two substantial tie beams in each principal room, chamfered with curved step stops. The exposed joists, studs and braces are of much lighter scantling. Some joists show signs of previous mortices filled in with wood, indicating possible reuse of timbers. Throughout the building a number of studs have been removed to accommodate later window and door openings. All window and door openings date from the 20th century, and the flooring is of poured concrete.