Boyles Court Cottages

Pair of cottages on Dark Lane, Great Warley, dating from the mid-16th century with 20th-century alterations and extensions.

The buildings are timber-framed, plastered and colourwashed with weatherboard below the windows and peg-tiled roofs. They follow a long rectangular plan with two lean-to rear additions. The north end was rebuilt in the 20th century as a two-storey cross-wing in red brick. Chimneys are positioned at each gable end, with a larger red brick stack set towards the north end, positioned to the rear of the roof apex.

The cottages stand parallel to the road at right angles to numbers 2 and 3 nearby (which are separately listed).

The front (east) elevation is single storey with an attic storey. Number 4 has two 20th-century 2-light casement windows with glazing bars (4x4 panes), a boarded door with a simple lean-to peg-tiled porch on posts and moulded architrave door-frame, and a gabled dormer window above with a 2-light casement (4x3 panes) set above a shared stack. Number 5 has two similar windows with a matching dormer above, plus an additional window by the door.

The rear (west) elevation is irregular. Number 5's south addition is entirely 20th-century brick with a flat roof, containing a central glazed door and 2-light casement window. The original house wall above has a 20th-century 2-light casement (4x2 panes) and a matching dormer. Behind this stands a 19th-century out-shut with a yellow brick stack and corrugated asbestos cement roof, containing a single casement window (2x2 panes). The 20th-century cross-wing end has ground and first-floor casements (4x3 panes each).

The south elevation features a 20th-century rebuilt stack, a tall slit fixed window, and a top-opening casement window (2x3 panes) in the rear addition. A 20th-century gabled attic window with glazing bars (4x3 panes) is positioned above.

The north elevation shows the old house weatherboarded with a rebuilt stack. The ground floor has two top-opening casement windows with glazing bars (2x3 panes). The 20th-century brick rendered rear addition contains a plain glazed door and a 2-light casement (4x3 panes), with a matching gabled attic window above (2x3 panes).

Internally, both cottages retain heavy timber studding with jowled posts rising to tie-beams at the chimney partition. The rear out-shut wall displays an external arched brace with an elegant curve from a central post to the wall plate. The roof is of side purlin type with arched wind braces.

The interior is organised as three cells of four bays, with a central two-bay hall containing deep section joists with run-out chamfered edges. Carpenters' marks are visible on the ceiling joists and frame members. The doorway and stair are probably original, positioned at the rear of the hall towards the south end room.

The central fireplace facing number 5 has a very wide timber lintel with remains of arched decoration. The floor framing exists in two uneven sections. The size of the fireplace, an upper stud over the central tie-beam in number 4, and an elegant curved, carefully chamfered collar in number 5 (slightly sooted) suggest the former existence of a timber hood before the present brick stack. If this interpretation is correct, the hall floor is probably a later insertion made when the stack was added, and the slight sooting of the roof would be caused by smoke billowing from the edges of the hood, which was originally set within the small open hall.

Gabled attic windows in their original position over the tie-beams provided lighting for the end storeyed bays. The house demonstrates the architectural changes occurring in the mid-16th century, marking the transition between the medieval open hall and the fully two-storey house with heated rooms of the 17th century.

Numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 Dark Lane form a grouped listing.