Water Lane Cottage

Water Lane Cottage is a house dating from around 1600, located in Bures Hamlet. It is timber framed and plastered, with a roof made of handmade red clay tiles. The cottage has three bays facing south and features an internal chimney stack situated at the right end of the middle bay against the rear wall. There are two 19th-century single-storey extensions at the rear, which are roofed with red clay pantiles.

The building stands two storeys high and has a three-window range of horizontally sliding sashes with 12 lights, along with one casement window with 6 lights on the first floor. Each end of the cottage has a ripped gablet. A plain boarded door from the 19th century is set in a 20th-century gabled porch on the right return wall. The chimney stack has one diagonally arranged shaft located behind the ridge.

Inside, there is a large wood-burning hearth made of 16th-century bricks, some of which are reversed, with modern brickwork on the sides. The structure features heavy studding and axial beams in each bay, but the floors differ. The left bay has plain joists of horizontal section with an original trimmed stair trap. The middle bay contains an inserted floor with joists of vertical section, which are chamfered with lamb's tongue stops. The right bay has joists that are plastered to the soffits. The collar-rafter roof is unsooted and retains original partitions made of wattle and daub.