The Ring Cottage

The Ring Cottage is a Grade II listed cottage ornee, originally a menagerie, built in the 1770s, possibly by the architect Hobcraft. The building has undergone alterations in the 19th century and again in the 1960s. It features a timber-framed structure that is now rendered, with a three-cell plan. Originally, it had two ground floor rooms and an open bird room to the south, which was made habitable and roofed in the 1960s. The cottage has a hipped roof covered with plain tiles, featuring a ridge stack and a 20th-century front wall stack.

The east front has five bays, with a central doorway that includes a gabled porch adorned with 19th-century Gothic bargeboards and a finial, a four-centred arch, and branch pattern decoration, likely dating back to the late 18th century. To the left are two 20th-century casement windows, and to the right are two similar windows. Above the entrance, there is a gabled roof dormer with barge-boards, a finial, branch pattern decoration, and a two-light casement window.

On the garden front, there are three bays featuring a large gabled central loggia with 19th-century Gothic bargeboards and a finial, along with a trio of late 18th-century Gothic pointed arches supported by slender quatrefoil shafts with capitals and bases. Above this loggia, there is a single glazing bar sash window with a square frame. Inside the loggia, there are three pointed arch sashes with Gothic glazing. Flanking the loggia are single 20th-century tripartite windows with glazing bars. The north and south elevations have similar ground floor windows and roof dormers as seen on the east front.

Inside, the cottage features a late 18th-century chimneypiece and doorcase in the central room, along with a contemporary straight staircase. Hobcraft is also known for designing the Gothic Chapel at Audley End House in the 1780s.