Bassetts Cottage And Asturias Cottage

A pair of small houses, possibly dating back to the 17th century or earlier, though extensively remodelled, probably in the 19th century using timber from the 16th and 17th centuries. The houses are constructed with Flemish bond brick on the ground floor, featuring blue headers, with some handmade bricks used in the end walls. The first floor is tile-hung, and the roof is covered in peg tiles, with a brick stack. Rear additions, built in the 1980s, are weatherboarded and have old peg-tile roofs.

The houses are arranged as a pair of mirror-image roadside dwellings, facing west. Each house has a main room at the front, with a back-to-back fireplace in a central stack, and a straight staircase rising against the rear wall. Front doors are located at the north and south ends. Short rear wings, originally unheated service rooms, are at right angles to the main body of the houses and have been extended in the 1980s with matching single-storey rear additions. Most of the interior carpentry is from the 16th or 17th centuries, but it appears to be mostly re-used.

The houses are two storeys high and have a symmetrical four-window front. They feature matching 19th-century two-light timber casements on the first floor (two panes per light), and similar three-light casements on the ground floor, which are slightly recessed with chamfered lintels. Asturias Cottage, on the right-hand (south) side, has a shallow 20th-century timber bow window on its south return with small panes.

Inside, the main rooms have chamfered crossbeams and joists. Bassetts Cottage has joists with step nick stops, while Asturias Cottage has joists with step stops on one side and run-out stops on the other; both sets of joists are likely re-used. Exposed rails on the rear walls are also re-used timbers. Asturias Cottage retains 19th-century matchboarding on the stair, and both houses have probably 18th-century ledged plank stair doors with strap hinges.

The roof of Asturias Cottage was inspected and is a queen post roof with almost every timber re-used, displaying redundant mortises and long projecting pegs. Some rafters have a soot crust, and may have originated from an open hall house.

These are attractive, traditional houses which contribute to the group value of the area, particularly in relation to Limes Farmhouse opposite and to the south.