Costens Park End Cottages

A house, originally two cottages, likely dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, with substantial rebuilding in the early 18th century. Around 1980, the cottages were combined and modernised. The walls are of ragstone laid in rough courses, with red brick dressings. The gable ends above first floor level are in English bond red brick. There are brick stacks and chimneyshafts, and a peg-tile roof.

The building was originally a pair of mirror-image cottages facing southeast. Each cottage had a central front doorway leading directly into a large outer room, with a stack at the gable end. Originally, stairs rose behind the front doors, but these no longer exist. A 19th-century rear stack, shared by the service rooms, was removed around 1980. The current stair was built around 1980 in the right-hand service room, leading up from rear extensions. The roof structure suggests origins in the late 16th or early 17th century, and the timbers may be reused, potentially indicating an even earlier origin. The house is two stories high with a single-story lean-to extension at the rear.

The exterior has a four-window front with replacement 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars. Each former cottage presents a symmetrical two-window arrangement around a central doorway, each doorway containing a 20th-century glazed door. Doorways and ground-floor windows are set within low segmental arches. Brick quoins are present at the door and window surrounds, and at each corner of the building. A brick band runs along the first floor, and a brick eaves cornice includes cogged bricks. The roof is gable-ended, with rear dormer windows added around 1980.

The interior was modernised around 1970, but the essential structure from around 1700 remains. The end rooms contain brick fireplaces with plain oak lintels; the lintel on the left has been replaced. Both rooms formerly had ovens. The rooms feature chamfered crossbeams, with step stops on the left-hand beam. A significant amount of reused timber, dating from a late 16th/early 17th century house, is found throughout the building. The roof is supported by six collared tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and queen struts, which are likely reused and may indicate that the cottages incorporated part of the structure of an earlier timber-framed house.