English Cottage

This is a late 17th-century English cottage situated on the Great Common. The building has a timber-framed core with a colour-washed brick face, and a roof covered in clay pantiles. Two red brick Dutch gable-ends feature well-shaped copings, corbels, and chimney stacks with plain shafts. The left gable, colour-washed, displays a large wrought-iron 'I' and 'R' near the top. Most of the windows are 20th-century replacements, including two 2-light small-paned casements with segmental arched heads on the ground floor, and fixed small-paned windows positioned on either side of the current entrance, which replace two former doors. A 20th-century enclosed and gabled brick and pantiled porch with a glazed door now fronts the entrance. Inside, the timbering is plain and arranged in five bays, showing evidence of a changed layout. The ceilings are at different heights, suggesting possible extensions to both ends of the house, which has a long frontage. The ground floor fireplace associated with the left chimney stack retains original brickwork and a small timber lintel; the right-hand chimney stack appears to be a later addition.