Boundary Cottage Midway Cottage St Helens Corner

A house, now a row of three houses, dating back to the 16th century, with later additions and a 19th-century facade. The building is timber-framed, with a ground floor built of red and grey brick in a Flemish bond pattern, and fishscale tiles to the first floor. It has a plain tile roof. The original house was three bays wide, timber-framed, and built at a right angle to the road, facing south. Later two-storey additions form a long wing that runs forward from the left (west) end of the front elevation. A stone plinth sits beneath the main range. The building is two stories high. The gable ends of the original main range were formerly jettied. The main range has a steeply pitched hipped roof with a gablet to the right. The wing has higher eaves and a front-facing half-hipped roof. There are multiple red brick ridge stacks to the right of the centre of the main range (to the left end of the right end bay), a slender projecting stack to the right gable end, one brick stack to the front gable end of the wing, one to the long left side of the wing, and another stack towards the junction with the main range. The fenestration is irregular, with a single two-light horizontally-sliding sash window to the main range, near the junction with the wing, and three two-light casement windows to the long right side of the wing. There are panelled doors leading to each house: one to No. 1, on the right side of the wing near the front gable end, one to No. 2 under the multiple brick stack, and one to No. 3 under the main range stack, both latter doors having gabled open porches. A lean-to extends along the long left side of the wing. The interior of No. 3 was partially inspected and reveals exposed timber framing. The end bays have broad, closely-spaced axial joists, with evidence of a stair trimmer in each. A chamfered axial beam is present in the central bay. Other features include gunstock-jowled posts, arch-braced tie-beams, a plain crown post with foot braces, and a plastered partition at each end of the central bay. A ground-floor fireplace has chamfered stone jambs and an uncambered bressumer with hollow spandrels. There are mortices and a shutter-groove for a three-light diamond mullion window in the ground floor of the left gable end.