Walnut Tree Cottage

Walnut Tree Cottage is a house dating from the mid-to-late 17th century, with later 19th- and 20th-century alterations. The house is timber-framed; the ground floor is largely underbuilt with white-washed 19th- and 20th-century brick, although some timber framing remains visible, while the first floor is clad in peg tiles. It has brick stacks and chimneyshafts, and a peg-tile roof.

The building is a detached 2-room plan cottage set back from the street, facing southeast. The main front room has a lateral stack on the northeastern side, now partially hidden behind modern service outshots. The original unheated rear room has a 19th-century gable-end stack. A staircase rises alongside the lateral stack, with direct entry into the front room.

The house is two storeys high, with attics, and has a lean-to outshot on the right side. The windows are of varying sizes and are irregularly distributed. Most are 20th-century replacements with glazing bars, but the attic window in the rear gable has rectangular panes of leaded glass. There is a small 20th-century brick porch with a low pyramid roof in front of the front doorway. The gable-ended roof extends down over the outshots and is interrupted by a dormer window that lights the staircase.

The interior shows well-preserved 17th-century carpentry. Both ground floor room crossbeams are chamfered with scroll stops, and the first-floor wallplate has the same finish. Some timber framing is exposed on the first-floor rear, featuring large framing with broad, curving tension braces. Jowled wall posts indicate a 2-bay roof structure, which is largely plastered over in the attics.

Walnut Tree Cottage is an interesting and well-preserved example of a small 17th-century house and contributes to a group of varied and attractive buildings in the centre of Hadlow.