Cockshoot Cottages

Cockshoot Cottages is a pair of cottages, formerly said to have been used as a public house. The building dates from the 16th and 17th centuries, with extensions and rearrangement undertaken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The original part is timber-framed. Its ground floor is underbuilt with probably 17th-century English bond brick, with timber-framing above that is weatherboarded. The extension is in the same style except that the brick is stretcher bond. The building has brick stacks (the original one may have a stone base) and brick chimneyshafts, with a peg-tile roof.

The pair of cottages is built across the hillslope and faces north-west, forming an overall L-plan building. The front block contains a 4-room plan. No. 1 occupies the right (south-western) 3-room section, with a central entrance hall containing the staircase and a small kitchen behind, a dining room to the right with an axial stack backing onto the entrance hall, and the left room with an axial stack backing onto the adjoining cottage. No. 2 occupies the left front room and the one room in the wing projecting behind, which has an outer lateral stack. No. 2 appears to be wholly late 19th or early 20th-century work, an extension or rebuild onto the old house.

No. 1 is the historic house. It originally had a 2-room plan and, although conclusive evidence is hidden in the roofspace, it seems likely that it originated as a late medieval, probably early 16th-century, open hall house. The hall has been subdivided and is now occupied by the left room, the entrance hall and the kitchen. The right end room was floored from the start and was originally an unheated service room with a bed chamber above. There is evidence that the chamber jettied out at the end. The stack serving this end was inserted in the 19th or early 20th century. The hall was floored in the late 16th or early 17th century. Since this ceiling structure stops well short of the present chimneybreast, it may be that the hall once had a smoke bay at that end, itself perhaps replacing an open hearth fire.

Both cottages are two storeys.

The exterior presents an overall regular 4-window front. The left bay (No. 2) has uPVC casements dating from circa 1988, whilst the rest (No. 1) has 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The doorway to No. 1 is right of centre and the doorway to No. 2 is near the left end. Both are reached by flights of stone and brick steps and both have late 19th or early 20th-century plank doors under gabled hoods on raking struts. The roof is hipped at both ends.

The interior shows no sign of early carpentry or other features in No. 2. However, the 16th and 17th-century structure appears to be well-preserved in No. 1. The service room has original axial joists of large scantling which show evidence for the end jetty. Some original large scantling framing is visible at first-floor level. The off-centre hall truss is closed although its large jowled wallposts and cambered tie-beam are exposed. The roof structure above is inaccessible. The former hall has an intersecting beam 4-panel ceiling dating from the late 16th or early 17th century. Both beams and joists are chamfered with step stops. The left (north-eastern) half beams stop well short of the chimneybreast. A large brick fireplace with a chamfered oak lintel may date from later in the 17th century.

According to the owner, No. 1 was once known as the Five Bells public house.