Lea Cottage (Number 36) Including Weatherboard Lean To To East Of Number 36

Lea Cottage, now forming two separate dwellings at numbers 36 and 38, dates from the late 17th century and has undergone alterations and extensions in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Number 36 is timber-framed and plastered, displaying faint evidence of underlying masonry, while the rear lean-to to number 38 is clad in black weatherboarding. The roof is primarily tiled, with a hipped section at the west end of number 38 featuring a substantial brick chimneystack with four clustered square shafts, recesses between them, corbelled back corners to the central shaft with a projecting band, and four cream terracotta pots. A rear outshut to number 38 has a lean-to roof of Welsh slate, while the rear of number 36 features a Welsh slate outshut and a single-storey lean-to with a pantiled roof.

The front facade displays an irregular arrangement of windows. Number 38 has two recessed 9-pane sash windows on the first floor, set beneath the eaves, a similar window lower down in the centre, and a triple-light wood casement window with divided glazing to the right. Number 36 features a 19th-century sash window with 6-pane glazing, a projecting architrave surround, a moulded cornice hood on consoles, and a canted oriel bay window to the right with a 4:12:4 pane sash window. A 4-panel door, recessed in an architrave with a floating cornice hood, is also present on number 36. The rear of number 38 has a two-storey lean-to, with a 19th-century canted oriel bay with triple sashes on the first floor and two flush-set 9-pane sash windows on the ground floor, which has been considerably altered with a 20th-century conservatory.

Internally, number 36 has a ground floor room with a stop-chamfered spine beam, though much of the interior has been renewed. Number 38 contains a similar beam in the ground floor east room, alongside a red brick fireplace with an arched timber bressumer. Fitted into the right-hand wall is a frame containing a boarded ledged door, indicating the original lobby entry arrangement, although it is now blocked off. A central staircase rises alongside exposed 17th-century studwork marked with carpenters’ marks, which was likely the original west wall. The west rooms of number 38 feature 19th-century details. The attic space confirms a 19th-century raising of the roof, built around an earlier ‘A’ frame with collar against the central stack. A cellar to number 38 features a brick floor and red brick walls.