Madam Taylors Cottages

Madam Taylor’s Cottages is a house, originally a group of cottages, dating from the mid to late 16th century, with later alterations and restoration in the 1970s. The building is timber-framed, with rendered walls showing exposed principal posts and a tension brace at the right end of the ground floor. It has a plain tile roof. The structure comprises five timber-framed bays, forming three rooms on each floor, with a single-bay room to the left (south) and two two-bay rooms. It likely originally faced west. The house is two storeys high and features projecting gable end stacks built of red and grey brick in English bond, with moulded brick offsets and chamfered stone bases. The left stack has a filleted flue, and the right flue has been rebuilt. Another red and grey brick stack, also in English bond, is located on the front elevation, between the second and third timber-framed bays from the left.

A short, two-storey rendered wing with a hipped plain tile roof projects forwards from the left-hand end bay. A narrow, adjoining, but shorter, former stair turret sits between this wing and the front stack. A brick lean-to extends across most of the front elevation. The fenestration is irregular, with a single two-light casement window to the left-end wing, a small single-light window to the turret, and another two-light window to the right end. A panelled door is located within the lean-to.

Inside, the central ground-floor room (the second and third timber-framed bays from the left) features roll-and-cavetto-moulded cross and axial beams, and heavily-chamfered joists on the first floor. The right-end room (the fourth and fifth timber-framed bays) has less pronounced moulding to its cross and axial beams on both floors. Each stack has a four-centred arched stone ground-floor fireplace with similar mouldings; the fireplace in the central room is slightly more ornate and bears the initials T.H. to the spandrels. Painted panelling is found in the right-end room and part of the central ground-floor room. Linenfold panelling, appearing in various designs and possibly partly repositioned, lines all four walls of the subdivided first-floor central room. The initials T.H. may refer to Thomas Henley, who owned Gore Court from about 1550 and other property from 1536.