Green Street Cottage

House. Later medieval in origin, with alterations and the eastern end rebuilt in the early 17th century. It is a one-and-a-half storey and single-storey timber-framed building, now plastered on the north side, with a half-hipped thatched roof that drops in two steps from east to west. Originally an open hall house, it features a two-storey cross wing on the west side, possibly jettied on the north front. The eastern part was rebuilt as a one-and-a-half-storeyed parlour block in the early 17th century. A chimney was built into the cross passage, a floor was inserted into the hall, and the upper storey of the west cross wing was destroyed in the mid-17th century. A lozenge-shaped date panel on the north wall of the east wing, marked ‘SIE 1660’, shares a similar design with the panel on “The Old Farmhouse” to the west and likely indicates a change of ownership. The current lobby entry and three-unit plan date from the 17th century, although the upper part of the central chimney has been rebuilt and a former oven projecting on the south side has been removed. The north front has small 19th-century casement windows and a plank door. Cut back joist-ends with plates above and below indicate the former jettied west cross wing, with a step down in the ridge marking the line of that wing. The interior reveals close-studded walls and partitions with much original wattle and daub. The hall features a stop-chamfered axial beam and squared joists. The parlour at the east end has a bar-stopped chamfered cross beam and squared joists. A band of wall painting in grisaille, depicting a running scroll on a white ground, runs along the beam and around all four walls of the parlour just below the joists, with one surviving full panel of circle-and-trellis interlace (dated to 1600-1625 by E Clive Rouse). Two smoke-blackened couples in the roof space west of the chimney indicate a collar-rafter single-framed roof. Heavy jowled mid-posts of the former two-bay west cross wing remain in the roof. The cottage was known as Walnut Tree Cottage until around 1960, and it is said to have been the horse keeper's house for Green Street Farm. This is a late medieval house demonstrably adapted to a three-unit lobby entry plan.