Lark Cottage Middle Cottage School View Cottage

A row of three cottages, originally four, stands at School Corner in Cratfield. Lark Cottage and Middle Cottage were initially a single house, and the group is also known as School View Cottage. The core of the structure dates to the mid to late 16th century, with later extensions added to the south end. The cottages are timber-framed and rendered, with a black glazed pantiled roof. Decorative fluted bargeboards adorn the gables, and there are two end chimney-stacks built into the gable ends, along with one internal stack. All chimney shafts have been rebuilt using old brick. The facade features five windows, originally four, with old four-light casements incorporating transoms and 19th-century Tudor hood-moulds. A small, gabled porch is attached to Lark Cottage, while Middle Cottage has a 20th-century plank door with a hood-mould and decorative ironwork. School View Cottage has a 20th-century side entry.

The interior of Lark Cottage is arranged in three bays, divided into a service room and a two-bay hall. The partition between the hall and service room has been altered, featuring a blocked doorway and a possible former stair door. The hall ceiling displays exposed joists with a wide chamfer and curved stops, with the main beam exhibiting a double roll-moulding and cut-off stops. The internal chimney-stack may have been preceded by a timber-framed chimney, featuring a narrow chimney-bay. A deep sill on the rear wall of the hall suggests a former oriel window, with a corresponding position in the hall chamber above. Upstairs, the room over the service area has housings for diamond-mullioned windows on front, back, and gable walls; some mullions have been replaced. Wallplates have edge-halved and bladed scarf joints, and wall-braces are reversed. The roof is a queen-post roof, open above the hall chamber, with plain, square posts, thin plank braces to arcade plates and cambered collars. Cambered tie-beams have had their arched braces removed.

Middle Cottage was originally the parlour end of the house, within a single long bay. The ground-floor ceiling has plain, unchamfered joists set flat, with a large main beam displaying a chamfer, curved stops, and a bar. The fireplace has a plain timber lintel, with evidence of studding above, and the surrounding brickwork dates to the 18th century. A four-light diamond-mullioned window is present on the rear wall. Upstairs, there is a four-light diamond-mullioned window on both front and back walls. Queen-post trusses are at each end of the room, along with an intermediate collar supporting the arcade plates.

School View Cottage is likely a 17th or 18th-century extension to the gable end of Middle Cottage. On the rear wall of the first floor, a blocked four-light window with diamond or triangular section mullions can be seen. Various extensions to the rear of each cottage relate to their conversion into a row of separate dwellings.