Mead Cottage

Mead Cottage is a group of three cottages, dating from the 17th and 19th centuries, which have been combined into a single house. The structure is timber-framed and has been plastered, with panels featuring a decorative zigzag combed design. The roof is thatched. The original two-bay cottage, aligned northeast-southwest, was built in the mid-17th century and features a chimney stack at the southwest end. An extension to the southeast was added in the early 19th century, with a central chimney stack forming two additional cottages. A 20th-century extension is present at the southwest end of the original cottage. The 17th-century cottage is single-storey with attics, while the 19th-century cottages are two-storey. The northeast elevation has a plain door and three casement windows on the ground floor, with a further three windows above, all dating from the 20th century. The roof is half-hipped at the southeast and hipped at the northwest. Internally, some timber framing is exposed. Within the original cottage, features include jowled posts, straight rising braces extending from the corner posts to the wallplates and tiebeams, interrupted studs, an original framed and pegged doorway through the central tiebeam, and unchamfered, vertically sectioned joists arranged axially. A square dormer window was inserted into the northwest side of the southwest bay in the 20th century, replacing an earlier, smaller dormer. The later cottages have lighter timber framing and primary straight bracing, with posts that are not jowled.