Hawksmill Cottage

Hawksmill Cottage is a house dating from the early 16th century, with a fragmentary 15th-century rear wing. It is two storeys high and features two windows. The building is timber-framed and plastered, with the upper floor originally jettied towards the street. The roof is covered with concrete tiles. The cottage has 20th-century small-pane casements and a panelled entrance door. This high-quality two-cell house retains the altered rear bays of the 15th-century cross-wing. Inside, there is a wide original fireplace in the hall, featuring a fine embattled and rib-moulded lintel, along with unusually well-carved brattishing and sunk panels of painted brick above. The close-studwork is of good quality, with long arch and tension-bracing. The complete crownpost roof includes an open truss with a square unbraced crownpost. The rear wall displays arch-braced principal posts without intermediate studwork, suggesting a possible former aisle where the current 20th-century extension is located. The 15th-century wing has massive first-floor joists, tension-braced studwork, and a blocked ovolo-moulded mullioned window that was intruded around 1600.