Bridges Cottages

Two cottages, originally built as a single house in the 16th century, with significant alterations in the 17th century and later. The houses have a three-cell cross-passage entrance plan. They are one storey high with attics. The construction is timber-framed and plastered; the front elevation features decorative cable-pattern pargeting, and one end wall exhibits exposed timber framing with plaster infill panels. The roof is covered with Roman pantiles, featuring a gabletted hip at the right-hand end and an axial chimney built of red brick. A 19th-century gabled dormer window is also present. The windows are a mix of 19th and 20th-century casements. A 19th-century four-panel entrance door is set within a 20th-century glazed porch. A two-storey, two-cell extension, likely dating to the 17th or 18th century, is attached to the front of the left-hand parlour end (now part of Cottage No. 1. It has a plaintiled roof and several small-pane casements, some with leaded lights. A blocked one-storey plastered and plaintiled porch provided access to a lobby entrance, which itself faced a large axial chimney. The main timber framing members and many rafters of the original lower range date to the 16th century, but the 1st floor joists have a flat, chamfered profile characteristic of the 17th century. Much of the studwork and the clasped-purlin roof are of 17th/18th century date. A large chimney from the 16th or 17th century contains an open lintelled fireplace backing onto the cross-passage.