Orchard Cottage

Orchard Cottage is a cottage dating from the early to mid-17th century, which was refurbished and enlarged around 1970. It features a timber-framed structure, with the ground floor underbuilt in 20th-century brick and the first floor hung with peg-tile. The building has a brick stack and chimney shaft, topped with a peg-tile roof.

The cottage has been transformed into an L-plan house. The front block, which faces east, has a two-room layout with one room on each side of a central entrance hall. A one-room plan rear block extends from the right end. This configuration primarily results from the refurbishment in the 1970s. The original 17th-century part is limited to the single room at the left (north) end of the front block. Originally, the house was a one-room plan cottage with a stack at its south end, which is now an axial stack, and it included an integral service lean-to outshot. A photograph from around 1952 in the National Monuments Records shows the cottage in its original 17th-century form before the extension. The building stands at two storeys.

The exterior displays a nearly symmetrical front with four ground floor windows and three first floor windows, all of which are 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The central front doorway features a 20th-century studded plank door behind a contemporary gabled porch, replacing the original door that was located at the left end. The roof is hipped at both ends.

Inside, the carpentry from the 17th century is well-preserved. The ground floor room has a chamfered crossbeam with one step stop. The relined brick fireplace includes an oak lintel that has been cut back on the soffit but still retains part of the chamfer with scroll stops. A similar crossbeam is found on the first floor. The roof consists of two uneven bays of tie-beam trusses with clasped side purlins and diminished principals, while the larger bay features straight principals and an intermediate A-frame truss.

Orchard Cottage is likely associated with the nearby Tattingbury Farmhouse and represents an interesting survival of a very small 17th-century house.