The Cottage

The Cottage is a house dating to the later 17th century, with an extension added around 1960. It is a long, low building, one and a half storeys high, originally timber-framed and plastered, now facing north with a low weatherboarded apron to the front. The roof is steeply gabled and covered in old red tiles. A small gabled porch sits at the front, and there is a rear kitchen wing at the west end. A gabled dormer window is above the main heated room. Inside, the plan features a lobby entry and a straight axial staircase alongside a central chimney near the west end. Originally, the house had four rooms in a line, entered directly from each other. The hall retains a wide fireplace and a chamfered axial beam. Two of the former unheated rooms to the east also feature chamfered axial beams. The modern extension to the east, now used as a library, is plastered and tiled to match the original building, with a matching front-gabled dormer. Four modern dormers are at the rear. The room above the hall has a handsome later 17th century red brick fireplace surround with a chamfered four-centred opening and a heavy moulded wooden shelf. The roof is a clasped purlin design with exposed collars. A tall 19th-century cast iron pump is located next to the rear wall and features a fluted chamber and an S-shaped handle operating through the top of a dome.