Elmlea

Elmlea is a three-bay lobby-entrance plan cottage dating to the 18th century, or possibly earlier. It is built of snecked clunch (vernacular hard chalk) blocks, local saltstone and brick, with a tile half-hipped roof and 20th-century timber casements.

The front (east) elevation is in coursed clunch block with a slightly offset entrance featuring a 20th-century porch of concrete block and tile. Two ground floor casement windows and two casement eyebrow dormer windows are present, the latter revealing tile hanging. Early 20th-century external plank doors include one to the front elevation and a side door to the north elevation. The north gable end wall displays an exposed queen post with brick stretcher bond infill; the bricks appear to be handmade in a mould and date to before 1850. An early 20th-century extension with corrugated catslide roof has been added to the south end, and an outside toilet of similar date to the north end. The rear (west) wall is blind, with particularly well-coursed clunch here.

Internally the cottage is three-up, three-down. The ground floor follows the lobby entrance plan with a room either side of the central chimney stack and an additional room at the far north end, now the kitchen. Each of the other two ground floor rooms has a fireplace; one retains an original wooden bressumer, while the other has a modern brick replacement. A boxed-in stair with plank door and steep staircase is located at the far south end, while the kitchen is accessed to the first floor by means of a trap door formerly served by a ladder.

The spine beam running through each ground floor room is original, though strengthened by later support in one room. Most timber joists are original, though those in the bathroom display unused mortices suggesting they were re-used. Most internal doors are 19th-century plank. The first floor rooms mirror the bays of the ground floor and have interconnecting doors. A blocked fireplace exists in the south end room, with the central chimney stack forming the division between this and the next room. Purlins run through each first floor room; these are older than the rafters visible extending from under the tile roof. Built-in cupboards surround one fireplace, and there is a cupboard under the staircase. Wooden panelling forms a bathroom at the first floor north end.

The early 20th-century corrugated roof extension at the south end and the outside toilet at the north end are not of special interest.

Elmlea is shown on the 1862 Ordnance Survey map and probably also on the 1810 first edition, though field boundary movement since the early 19th century makes this difficult to confirm. Photographs from 1978 show that the cottage roof was refurbished and the thatch replaced by tile at some point after that date. Much of the cottage is built of clunch, a hard chalk local to the area and used in other buildings in the locality.