Holly Cottage

Holly Cottage is a cottage dating to the late 17th or 18th century, with later extensions in the second half of the 20th century. Extensions built in the 1960s and a 20th-century extension to the north-west are not considered to be of special architectural or historic interest.

The original section of the cottage is timber-framed and clad in weatherboarding, originally tarred. It has a hipped roof, originally thatched but now covered with asbestos sheeting, and a centrally positioned brick ridge chimney stack.

Originally a single-story, three-cell cottage with a lobby entrance plan, the central cell served as a heated living room, flanked by a larger, unheated chamber to the northeast and a smaller chamber to the southwest. The original front entrance was located on the southeast side, opposite the chimney stack. A lean-to addition was subsequently added to the northwest. In the 1960s, the original plan was modified by removing the partition between the living room and the northeast chamber, adding a further bedroom to the northeast, and replacing the original rear lean-to with a full-length, single-story, flat-roofed addition. The original front entrance was blocked.

The southeast, or entrance, front is clad in old weatherboarding. It has three 20th-century casement windows set within original openings, and a recessed doorcase opposite the chimney stack incorporating a four-panelled door. The southwest end is similarly clad with weatherboarding and has one 20th-century casement window. The northwest end is also clad in weatherboarding. The original northwest, or rear, elevation (now internal) exhibits the timber frame, including studs, curved tension braces and a ledged plank rear door. The 20th-century addition is rendered and features three pivoting casement windows.

The living room has a brick open fireplace at the west end, extending across the full width of the room except for the lobby. The chamfered wooden bressumer has run-out stops and shows traces of a former cooking crane. A gabled recess for salt or spices is also present. The western section of the ceiling retains a spine beam with a one and a half-inch chamfer, along with chamfered floor joists. An early 19th-century plank door leads from the living room into the lobby. The eastern portion of the living room has a slightly chamfered spine beam but lacks chamfers to the floor joists. The front and back walls of the living room showcase exposed, closely spaced studs, jowled posts marking the original eastern corners of the cottage, and thick curved tension braces. The eastern wall of the living room, previously an external wall, retains an original mid-post and slender tension braces connecting the corner posts to the wall plate, although much of the timber has been replaced with brickwork. A ledged, three-plank door with pintle hinges provides access from the lobby into the southwest chamber, which also features jowled corner posts and curved tension braces. The floor joists in this room run at right angles to those in the living room. Both the living room and the southwest bedroom have wide attic floorboards visible. The attic space has rough-hewn rafters.