The Cottages, Mascalls Court

This is a former farmhouse, now divided into two tenanted cottages. It likely dates from the mid-17th century. The building is timber-framed, with the ground floor of the front elevation finished in brick and the first floor covered in tile-hanging with decorative scalloped tiles. The roof is covered in peg tiles, and features a stack with a brick chimney shaft.

The house faces south, slightly set back from the road. It follows a two-cell lobby entrance plan, with two rooms of similar size heated from a back-to-back fireplace in a central stack. A staircase rises from the rear wall of the left-hand room. A rear wing, likely added later, contains service rooms.

The two-storey front elevation is almost symmetrical with three bays and a steeply hipped roof. The central doorway is an 18th-century front door with fielded panels, protected by an early 19th-century gabled porch with lattice sides and pierced bargeboards. The ground floor has two windows: a 19th or 20th-century three-light casement with two panes per light on the left, and a similar three-light casement, reglazed in the late 20th century, on the right. Two first-floor windows are small-pane casements, probably 19th-century, with a small one-light window centered above. The left return displays a first-floor two-light small-pane casement and two ground-floor two-light windows. An attractive tiled pentice runs along the left return, and some timber framing is exposed. The rear wing has a half-hipped roof.

The west cottage was inspected, revealing scroll-stopped ceiling beams running along the long axis and jowled wall posts supporting the timber framing. There are 19th-century fireplaces on both the ground and first floors, one with a tiled surround and the other with a cast iron grate. The interior of the east cottage is also likely to be of interest.

The roof of the main range appears to be a clasped purlin type.

The building is notable for its attractive appearance and roadside setting, and contributes to the group value with the listed farm building to the east.