The Old Cottage

The Old Cottage is a former farmhouse dating from the early to mid-17th century, which was modernised with service additions around 1930. The building is timber-framed, with the ground floor underbuilt in Flemish bond red brick featuring decorative burnt headers. Above, the framing is hung with peg-tile, and the roof is also covered in peg-tile. The brick stacks and chimney shafts include an old stack with a stone base and early brick in the shaft.

The house faces south and has a three-room lobby entrance plan. An axial stack between the centre and right (east) rooms serves back-to-back fireplaces, suggesting that the centre room was likely the kitchen and the right room served as the parlour. The left end room was originally an unheated service room, with a later addition of a gable-end stack. The building has two storeys, with a garage extension added to the right end and further extensions to the rear around 1930, which include the main stair, kitchen, and service rooms.

The exterior features a regular but not symmetrical three-window front, with a fourth window in the garage, all of which are circa 1930 timber casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The front lobby entrance is located right of centre, behind a circa 1930 gabled brick porch that includes a plank door with cover strips. The roof is gable-ended to the left and half-hipped to the right, with the garage extension also having a half-hipped roof.

Inside, the interior largely reflects the circa 1930 modernisation, but the 17th-century layout is preserved, with some original features exposed. Both the centre and right rooms have chamfered crossbeams with scroll stops. The right room, the parlour, features a relatively small fireplace with sandstone ashlar sides and a chamfered oak lintel with scroll stops. The larger fireplace in the former kitchen is lined with 20th-century brick, but retains its original cambered oak lintel. Much of the 17th-century carpentry is concealed behind 20th-century plaster. The roof was extensively rebuilt in the 20th century but still includes a 20th-century clasped side purlin tie-beam truss.