Christmas Cottage

Christmas Cottage is a small house, likely originally a wing to the adjoining Old Thatch. It dates from around the late 16th century with remodeling in the mid to late 19th century, and later repairs and alterations in the late 20th century. The construction is timber-framed, with the rear rendered and the right-hand (north-east) gable end in English bond red brick. The front wall was rebuilt in the mid to late 19th century in Flemish bond red brick, and the roof is covered with red clay pantiles with gabled ends and plain bargeboards. Brick gable end stacks are present, the right-hand one dating to the 17th century and both featuring 19th-century diagonally set brick shafts.

The cottage has a 2-storey, 2-room plan. The larger room on the right-hand (north-east) side, and its chamber above, were originally heated by a gable end stack. The ground floor room features a large fireplace, while the smaller room on the left was initially likely unheated. A blocked doorway in the rear wall of the right-hand room suggests direct entry and a possible function as a service wing to the adjoining medieval range (Old Thatch). This wing may have been added in the late 16th century and remodeled in the 17th century. In the mid to late 19th century, the entire range was sub-divided into a separate cottage, with a straight staircase inserted between the rooms, rising from a front entrance lobby. The roof and front wall were rebuilt, and a stack was added at the left-hand end. A late 20th-century stair extension was built behind the right-hand room.

The south-east front is almost symmetrical with three windows, built in the mid- to late-19th century with brick plinth and brick hoodmoulds over the windows. There are mid- to late-19th-century 2-light casements with glazing bars and brick sills. A central doorway has a 19th-century canopy on carved wooden braces with a tiled lean-to roof, and a 20th-century door. The right-hand (north-east) gable end is in English bond brick with a 17th-century 4-light wooden diamond mullion window on the first floor above a 20th-century casement on the ground floor. The rear elevation is rendered with a 20th-century stair projection on the left.

Inside, exposed wall studding is visible, along with a blocked doorway in the rear wall of the right-hand room. A stud partition separates the rooms, featuring a large chamfered headbeam with hollow step stops. The right-hand room has chamfered cross-beams with ogee and notch stops, unchamfered joists, and a large brick fireplace with a cambered timber lintel having run-out stops. The ceiling joists in the left-hand room have been replaced, and the red brick fireplace is Victorian. A small blocked window with four diamond mullions is present in the rear wall of the left-hand room. The right-hand chamber has a plastered brick fireplace with a chamfered 3-centred arch. On the first floor, jowled heads to the wall posts at the right-hand end are exposed, along with cambered chamfered tie beams, although the roof structure above was replaced in the 19th century, incorporating some old timber as purlin struts.