THE CROFT AT TG 2003 0251

The Croft is a 16th-century cottage located in Swarston on The Common. It is constructed from timber framing with rendering and has a pantile roof. The building features two and a half bays along with a chimney bay, and it is a single storey with an attic. There is an off-centre axial stack on the right side. The left half bay includes a door and a mid-20th century three-light casement window, while the left cell has a late 20th-century opening with three large fixed lights. The chimney bay has a doorway, and the right cell contains a three-light casement window. The roof has two gabled dormers.

The right side of the building is made of brick, while the left side is rendered and offset at the eaves level, with a doorway positioned below the eaves. The rear of the cottage has an outshut attached to the back of the left bay and a half bay made of rendered 18th-century brick, with a roof that slopes down from the main roof.

Inside, there is a large central stack with a staircase at the rear. The cottage has an inserted 17th-century floor with large joists and lambs tongue stops on the beams. Timber studs form a partition between the half bay and the left cell, which features a chamfered doorway that is now blocked. On the first floor, there is a partition between the left cell and the half bay, supported by curved braces to the ties. The roof structure has three tiers with continuous clasped purlins and two collars per truss, along with timber studding between the lower collar and tie. There is a small blocked opening with a lozenge mullion between the cells at the front of the stall, and former window openings below the wall plate of the left cell and on the north gable of the half bay, both of which are now blocked.