Church Street Cottage

Church Street Cottage, Blackmore

House dating from the early 15th century and late 16th century, altered in the 20th century. The building comprises timber-framed construction, plastered and weatherboarded, roofed with handmade red clay tiles.

The early 15th-century component is a 2-bay range aligned approximately east-west with its gable end facing Church Street, and two 18th-century stacks to the south against Blacksmith's Alley. The roads meet at an obtuse angle, and the building is constructed to this same angle at the east end, with a right angle at the west end. The later late 16th-century component is a parallel 3-bay range to the north, aligned to Church Street at the east end and projecting one-and-a-half bays beyond the earlier range at the east. This northern range was formerly jettied along this part but is now underbuilt, with an axial stack at the east end of the middle bay. The building is 2 storeys high. A single-storey lean-to in red brick with Flemish bond and weatherboards was added at the west end in the 18th or 19th century, roofed with handmade red clay tiles. All windows are 20th-century metal casements. A plain boarded door is set in a 20th-century lean-to porch in the rear angle.

The Church Street elevation is bricked up to first-floor level and entirely plastered. The elevation of the shorter range to Blacksmith's Alley is plastered with red brick stacks. Both rear elevations are weatherboarded, as is the north elevation. The south range spans only 3 metres and features jowled posts and chamfered joists of horizontal section, exposed in the east bay. An underbuilt jetty faces Church Street. In the Blacksmith's Alley elevation between the stacks on the first floor is a framed original window with mortices for diamond mullions 76 millimetres square, with a rebate in the wallplate for a former shutter.

Interior: The roof is difficult to access and has been reported to be rebuilt. The north range has in its west bay a 20th-century softwood floor with plastered soffits and a 20th-century grate. The two eastern bays are undivided at both storeys and feature chamfered binding and bridging joists with lamb's tongue stops, plain joists of vertical section, and evidence of the former jetty to the south. A clasped purlin roof contains some original wattle and daub remaining in the east gable and the studded partition to its west. Treble-pegged chamfered arched braces rise to the collar between the other two bays. Originally there was no tie-beam, indicating the space was formerly open to the roof, with a 17th-century inserted ceiling. The wide wood-burning hearth in the middle bay has an early 16th-century moulded beam without stops serving as a mantel beam, possibly from the Augustinian Priory dissolved in 1527. The hearth brickwork has been entirely renewed in the 20th century. Inside the stack are several bricks engraved with various initials and the date 1804, moved by the present owner from the wall which underbuilds the south jetty. On the first floor, the west and south walls contain formerly glazed windows with ovolo mullions with moulded glazing fillets and diamond saddle bars dating from the early 17th century, but not in their original positions; they are reported to have been moved from other parts of the south wall, though they themselves are insertions.