The Cottage, Edingthorpe Green

The Cottage, Edingthorpe Green

This pair of semi-detached cottages was built around 1700, with the western cottage and outshot added in the early 18th century, and further alterations made during the 19th century. The building is constructed of red brick and flint with a pantile roof and red-brick chimneytstacks, with walls partially rendered.

The cottages form a rectangular-plan building laid out roughly on an east-west axis. A catslide roof covers single-storey outshots to the rear (north), and projecting rectangular-plan stores were added to the east and west ends during the 19th century.

The two-storey front (south) elevation is smooth rendered with stepped brickwork to the eaves. The eastern cottage has a central door flanked on either side by a single window on both ground and first floor. The western cottage has a blocked doorway with a single window to the west on both floors. Both cottages contain segmental-headed door and window openings with timber casements and window furniture of mixed dates. The east gable wall is rendered red brick laid in Flemish bond with a shaped brick plinth, while the west gable wall is constructed of coursed flint with red brick quoins. The outshot spans the full width of the cottages with straight-headed doors and windows containing timber casements. The eastern outshot has a small chimney stack at its eastern end with a central doorway on the rear elevation flanked by windows; the upper courses of brickwork are Fletton bricks. The western outshot has a central doorway with flanking windows and is divided from the eastern cottage by a firewall with its own roof. The single-storey stores to each gable have mono-pitch roofs covered in pantiles laid on straw with red brick stretcher-bond walls. A mid-20th-century store with shallow mono-pitch corrugated iron roof and walls stands between the eastern store and the eastern end of the outshot.

The front door of the eastern cottage (built around 1700) opens into a living room containing a 19th-century inserted beam, a central fireplace on the eastern wall with a mid-20th-century surround, and a smoking chamber in the north-eastern corner complete with wooden doors and one early 18th-century butterfly hinge. A stair door in the south-eastern corner leads to a winder staircase with an understairs cupboard. The outshot to the north contains a kitchen with a narrow 19th-century range, bread oven and copper complete with pan on its eastern wall. A second pantry accessed via the kitchen's western wall was originally a single larger pantry subdivided by a stud wall in the 19th century, resulting in partial blocking of the rear window. A change in wall thickness suggests the upper section of the rear wall of the eastern outshot was rebuilt or raised during the 19th century. West of the living room is a second reception room with a tiled floor and a central fireplace on the west wall flanked by built-in cupboards. The outshot to the north contains another pantry with a tiled floor and shaped brick plinth to the western wall. The first floor of the eastern cottage contains two bedrooms: the main bedroom accessed directly from the winder staircase, with a second bedroom to the west later subdivided to provide a small second bedroom to both east and west cottages. The roof is ceiled at collar level; the lower section of a principal truss is visible in the main bedroom, as well as an additional 19th-century truss, and there is a blocked opening at the eastern end of the rear wall.

The western cottage, built in the early 18th century, contains a living room on the ground floor with a fireplace on the centre of the western wall within a mid-20th-century surround, a built-in cupboard in the north-western corner, and a winder staircase in the south-western corner accessed via a stair door with an understairs cupboard below. The kitchen to the north contains a narrow 19th-century range, bread oven and copper complete with pan on its western wall, with a door in the east wall providing access to a pantry. The first floor contains two bedrooms but was inaccessible due to the condition of the stairs and upper floor at the time of survey. Most doors and cupboard doors in both cottages are simple plank doors with early 18th-century door furniture including strap hinges, door handles and latches.