Oak Cottage

Oak Cottage is a pair of houses, dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries, that were combined into one dwelling and later extended in the 20th century. It is timber framed with plaster infill and a tiled roof. The building is complex, consisting of a two-bay, two-story structure at the northeast end, showing weathered timber suggesting it is part of a larger, now mostly lost, 16th-century house. Adjacent to this is a three-bay 15th-century hall house. A small space between the two houses has been filled in. There is a two-story extension to the rear (northwest) and a single-story extension added in the 20th century. The front has three 20th-century casement windows on the ground floor and four on the first floor. The northeast end has a gablet roof, while the southwest end is gabled. Some timber framing is exposed inside. A jetty was added to the front of the northeast building after its initial construction, a rare feature. A chimney stack with two hearths was inserted at the southwest end of the middle bay of the hall house in the late 16th century. To the northeast of the chimney stack, an inserted floor features an axial beam and common joists with elaborate roll mouldings, dating to around 1500. This flooring has been truncated at the northeast end and is supported by a 17th-century transverse beam, which is plain apart from chamfers and stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops. Further to the northeast, plain joists likely mark the site of a former timber framed chimney. Evidence within the roof indicates significant rebuilding occurred in the 16th century. All four braces of a crownpost – two arch-braces to the collar-purlin and two curved down-braces to the tiebeam – have been retained, all smoke-blackened, although the crownpost itself has been replaced. This was likely done because the original crownpost had a moulded cap and base, and a wattled partition built in the 16th century required a plainer post. Elsewhere, smoke-blackened rafters have been re-set. The roof of the northeast wing is of clasped purlin construction. An interesting repair to a tiebeam one bay from the southwest end consists of a splint connected by a joint resembling a trait-de-Jupiter scarf, with large edge-pegs and hand-made nails, suggesting a sophisticated carpentry technique, likely no later than the 17th century.