The Cottage

A C17 farm cottage, after the mid-C19 incorporated into the Westwood Lodge estate.

MATERIALS: knapped flint with flint galleting, brick dressings and a gabled tiled roof with external brick chimneystacks.

PLAN: a single storey and attic two bay cottage with end external chimneystacks, with a later but pre-1876 single storey addition to the N. Internally there were originally two rooms on each floor with end fireplaces and a winder staircase. The later extension provided an additional ground floor room.

EXTERIOR: the principal NW front of the original part has a sloping roof with two gabled dormers. The ground floor has tripartite casement windows and a projecting red brick porch with Flemish gable and plank door on the south side. The single storey northern addition has an additional entrance with a plank door.

The SW end has kneelers to the gable end and a wide projecting brick chimneystack with C17 brickwork, ribbed near the tapering top.

The SE elevation has one dormer window and a number of casement windows and an entrance to the ground floor.

There are attached flint and brick boundary walls on the E, S and W sides.

INTERIOR: access through the porch leads into the central room which has a chamfered spine beam with lamb's tongue stops and exposed floor joists. The open fireplace at the northern end has C19 brickwork but the chamfered bressumer is older.

The S room originally had an open fireplace from the C17 external chimneystack. It may also originally have had exposed floor joists, but now it has a late C18 or early C19 spine beam. A horizontal beam at the junction of the two rooms ground floor rooms was originally a wallplate and has rafter sockets.

The N ground floor room has C20 kitchen fittings.

A late C18 or early C19 wooden winder staircase near the SE end leads to the upper floor which retains a plank door with pintle hinges to the N bedroom, which also retains the top of a brick chimneystack, and a ledged plank door to the S bedroom.

There was no access into the roof space.