Primrose Cottage

Primrose Cottage is a house dating from around the middle of the 17th century, with later additions from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. It has a steeply pitched pantile roof with bargeboards to the gable ends, and a brick axial stack situated towards the left of the centre. Originally, the house comprised three rooms, with a lobby entrance positioned in front of the central hearth, which features back-to-back fireplaces heating the central and left-hand rooms. A smaller, unheated room is located at the right-hand end. A single-storey, one-room plan extension, likely from the 18th century, is located at the left (south) end. Further outshuts behind the extension and at the right-hand end were probably added in the 19th century, with the latter largely rebuilt in the 20th century. A 20th-century single-storey outshut is located at the left, south end. The east front is asymmetrical with three windows, featuring 20th-century 2-light casements and two gabled half-dormers with 20th-century casements. A 19th-century panelled door is set within a 20th-century open timber porch. The south extension has a gabled pantile roof and a 4-light casement at the front. The north end has an early 19th-century attic casement in the gable. The rear (west) elevation includes several 20th-century casements, a 20th-century glazed door, and single-storey outshuts to the left and right. Inside, the central room has a fireplace with an unchamfered lintel and a blocked oven. The ceiling is plastered. The room at the right-hand end has a former window in the rear wall (now a doorway) with mortices in the lintel for diamond mullions. The left-hand room of the original house contains a chamfered cross-beam with notched run-out stops, a brick fireplace with a chamfered lintel, and exposed timber bressummers above both fireplaces. Further exposed timber lintels with run-out stops are found in the chamber above the left-hand room’s fireplace. The left-hand room in the south addition features slighter scantling cross-beams. A winder staircase rising from the lobby entrance and against the axial stack has a stick balustrade at the top. The original roof structure has three tiers of staggered butt purlins and a later ridgeboard; the stack replaces a previous timber-framed stack.