Wych Elm Cottage

Wych Elm Cottage is a small house dating from the 15th or early 16th century, with an eastern bay added in the early 17th century. It features a timber frame on a tarred brick sill, with roughcast walls and panelled pargetting. The steep half-hipped thatch roof extends over a weatherboarded lean-to at the eastern end. The cottage is one and a half storeys high and has three bays, originally a small open hall house, with a storeyed bay at the western end and an inserted gable chimney at the eastern end. There is a deeper single-storey 17th-century one-bay extension to the east, which remains open to the roof, and a later weatherboarded lean-to on the eastern side. The building faces north and has a lobby entrance by the chimney, along with a single three-light lattice window. There is also a cast-iron three-light lattice window at the eastern end. Inside, the cottage displays close-studding and jowled posts in both the 15th and 17th-century sections. The roof features collar rafters with purlins added at the western end, and deep arched braces support a cambered tie beam in the middle of the hall. The western bay contains old axial floor joists, and there is straight tension bracing in the 17th-century eastern bay. The weatherboarding, which was originally external on the western side, is now within the lean-to. This cottage is notable for its unusual survival as a small late medieval house.