Two Door Cottage

Two Door Cottage is a house of mixed date: the cross-wing is 13th century, with later phases in around 1500, the 18th century, and the 20th century. The building is timber-framed, rendered and colourwashed, with a peg-tiled roof.

The plan consists of a rectangular main range with a cross-wing projecting to the north and to the rear. The building stands two storeys with an attic in the main range, and one storey in the cross-wing. The roof is hipped, with a central stack in front of the roof apex and a second stack at the south end, positioned to the rear.

The west elevation (front) has been substantially renewed with 20th-century windows and doors throughout. The ground floor contains, running north to south across the cross-wing: a fixed window with glazing bars of 3 by 2 panes, a door with moulded architrave and upper glazing of 3 by 3 panes with a single lower fielded panel, a 3-light casement window with glazing bars of 6 by 3 panes, a door under a simple hood with upper glazing of 4 by 4 panes and a single lower fielded panel, and a 2-light casement window with glazing bars of 4 by 3 panes. The first floor has a sash window in the north-south cross-wing section, while the main range features two gabled dormer attic windows with peg-tiled roofs and 2-light casements of 4 by 3 panes.

The rear elevation of the main range contains an 18th-century red brick out-shut with a roof in continuous catslide and irregular 20th-century windows. Running north to south on the ground floor are a French window of single panes with a weather-boarded flat-roofed 20th-century addition, an 18th-century out-shut with two 2-light 20th-century casement windows, and a 20th-century flat-roofed addition with a picture window and a door with an upper glazed panel and sunk lower panel. The first floor of the cross-wing has 20th-century sash windows with glazing bars of 3 by 4 panes, whilst the main range has a dormer attic window that is weather-boarded and fitted with a 20th-century casement window with glazing bars of 4 by 2 panes. The south end carries a 20th-century skylight above the stack. The south elevation is partly early, with weather-boarded and rendered sections, an 18th-century lean-to that is weather-boarded, and a 20th-century brick addition that is rendered.

The interior preserves significant medieval framing. In the first floor of the cross-wing is a square-sectioned tie-beam with braces of archaic incomplete curvature, unjowled posts, and a splayed scarf joint with under-squinted butts in the adjacent wall plate, which dates the framing to the 13th century. On the ground floor below are early service buttery and pantry doors with 2-centred heads. The framing above displays arched bracing on the hall side, and a binding joist of the ground floor ceiling with stud mortices and a wattle groove for the buttery and pantry division wall.

A later medieval hall butts against the old cross-wing, with evidence of hall detail preserved in the rear wall. The cross-passage door head and mortice for the spere head beam survive in the door post, below which is a rising mortice for an arched brace from the door post to the spere beam. The sooted crown post had four-way braces and a broach stop at its base, mounted on a principal hall tie-beam set near the service end with arched braces. The rear brace sits on a continuing fillet stopped as a corbel. Three mullion mortices survive as evidence of a rear hall window. The high end contains a storied room with a narrow original window to the first floor, probably positioned above the tie-beam, with a half-hipped roof rather than fully hipped as it appears now.

Later alterations include the insertion of a stack in the low end of the hall, positioned behind the cross-passage, and an associated inserted first floor of the hall. The first floor features an elm bridging joist with lambs' tongue and roll chamfer stops typical of the early 17th century. A newel stair and small fireplace in the high-end room are probably contemporary with this phase.

The house is recorded as having had external shutter grooves on the rear window of the hall, an unusual feature. The building preserves several relatively rare features from the medieval period and clearly demonstrates the evolution of a domestic dwelling. Two Door Cottage forms part of a group with other buildings around the green.