The Cottage

The Cottage is a house dating from the early 17th century. It is timber framed with plaster infilling and has a plain tile roof. The building features a lobby-entry plan with either three or five timber-framed bays, including a central stack bay. It has two storeys and a cellar, with a rendered plinth and a continuous jetty that returns to both the left and right sides. The left gable-end jetty is underbuilt, while the right end displays a grotesque of a woman riding a winged devil beneath a dragon beam. There is a scrolled bracket with strapwork towards the rear of the right gable end. The studding is broadly spaced, with painted brick infilling on the ground floor and rendered panels on the first floor. The roof is hipped, and there is a central brick ridge stack. The windows are irregularly arranged, featuring three leaded casements: two three-light and one central single-light. There is evidence of an oriel or bay window with frieze lights on both the right and left sides of the ground floor. The central entrance has a panelled door within a painted brick porch that includes a moulded wooden cornice, a flat roof, and Gothick side lights. At the rear, there is a lean-to, with the central section built up to two storeys in red and grey brick, topped with a half-hipped plain tile roof. The interior has only been partly inspected, but it reveals exposed framing on the ground floor. Each of the two ground-floor rooms features an ovolo-moulded axial and tenoned cross beam, along with a brick fireplace that has chamfered jambs, a bressumer, and an angled back. The left ground-floor room is panelled and includes a reeded frieze and an enriched 17th-century wooden overmantel.