The Old Cottage Restaurant

The Old Cottage Restaurant is a house that has been converted into a restaurant. It dates back to the 16th century or earlier for the northern crosswing, with a short southern hall range from the 17th century, and an early 18th-century red brick casing on the ground floor front and rear gable. The building features a timber frame with wide, storey-height plastered panels at the front, brick nogging on the rear wall of the hall range, and red brick on the front ground floor and rear gable. The gable triangles are hung with scalloped tiles, and the steep roofs are covered with old red tiles, hipped with a gablet around the southern gable, which formerly had an external chimney with diagonal square shafts and moulded caps.

This small T-plan house has two storeys, a cellar, and part of a loft in the crosswing. The eastern front, which faces the street, has a gabled wing on the right that is flush with the front of the southern range. There is one window on each floor of both parts. The left part has a flush three-light cast iron lattice casement window, while the right part features a similar window on the first floor and an early 18th-century small-paned sash window with three equal lights on the ground floor, accompanied by a trellis porch and door leading into the end of the crosswing on the left. The front may have been extended about one metre to the south in the early 19th century. There are three early 18th-century narrow flush sash windows on the first floor at the rear of the crosswing, one of which is blocked.

Inside, the building has heavy timbers with jowled posts and curved tension braces, as well as large curved braces supporting the cambered tie-beams of the clasped purlin roof in the two-bay crosswing. The lower southern hall range, which is butted to the crosswing, has a cambered tie-beam, jowled posts, and a shutter rebate in the wallplate at the rear. Moulded mitred panelling engraved with 'NK 1569 MK' flanked by scratch-moulded panelling likely came from the former Manor House that was demolished in the 19th century. The ground floor rooms feature 18th-century panelling with a moulded cornice and heavy surround, particularly in the southern room. The axial beam is chamfered with bar stops. There is a six-panel fielded door to the left of the fireplace and a two-panel door leading to the stair in the crosswing. Additionally, there are rebated timber frames for small cupboards in each jamb of the fireplace.