Black Cottage

Black Cottage is a house dating from the mid 16th century, with a 20th-century extension. It features a weatherboarded timber frame on a brick plinth, with a plastered and whitewashed upper storey. The roofs are machine tiled and plaintiled. The building has a 2-cell plan running north-south, which was converted to a T-plan in the 20th century.

The exterior is two-storey with a single-window range from the 16th century. There is an early 20th-century half-glazed door on the west front, offset to the right of centre. To the right of the door is a 2-light Crittall casement window, with a similar window on the first floor. The gabled roof is hipped to the south, and a stack emerges through the roof slope to the north. The north gable jetties to the first floor, featuring a 3-light Crittall window on the ground floor and a 2-light similar casement in the attic. To the left, there is a single-storey addition from the mid 20th century under a catslide roof, fitted with a 3-light Crittall window. The south elevation has an early 20th-century brick external stack to the left of the central half-glazed door, with a 3-light Crittall window to the right in a mid 20th-century 2-storey extension. There are no first-floor openings on this side. The east elevation has a brick stack flush with the wall plane, with one 2-light Crittall casement to the right and two similar casements on the first floor. The stack emerges at the internal gable-end flue.

Inside, the 16th-century frame consists of two bays with jowled principal studs. The middle rails and wall plates are chamfered and tongue stopped in each cell on both floors. A central truss supports a pair of arched braces that rise to support the principal roof truss. The first-floor ceilings are plastered, with no access to the roof. An early 20th-century straight-flight staircase is located immediately south of the central truss. The walls on either side feature exposed studwork to the north. The south entrance lobby has three exposed ceiling joists of heavy scantling, with a similar bridging beam and joists in the bathroom, which is the south-west ground-floor room. The east rooms have 20th-century fittings without architectural features. On the first floor, the north-west room contains an early 19th-century cast-iron basket grate in the fireplace and a plank entrance door on strap hinges. The south-west room features a 3-plank 18th-century door on HL hinges.