Myrtle Cottage

Myrtle Cottage is a former farmhouse, likely originating in the 15th century with medieval roots, and significantly altered in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Later, minor changes occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries. The building is timber-framed with exposed posts on the front elevation. The lower sections are brick, while the upper section is plastered with a tile-hung south end. A brick stack and chimneyshaft are present, and the roof is covered with peg tiles.

The house faces east and consists of a low, two-room block, now with the ground-floor rooms combined into one. Originally, there was an unheated service room at the south end, now featuring a projecting 19th-century stack, and a kitchen/living room to the right, heated by a right-end stack. Lean-to additions extend to the right end and across the rear of the building. A modern door provides access to the rear outshot, and the right outshot, now used as a kitchen, has a late 19th/early 20th-century stack backing onto the main stack.

The original design was that of a medieval open hall house. The south end has always been floored, housing a service room and bedchamber above. The kitchen/living room was initially an open hall, likely with an open hearth fire, which was later floored over, given a stack, and a new roof constructed in the late 16th or early 17th century. Timber used in the outshots, particularly the right end one, suggests they are early, potentially original.

The front elevation features an irregular arrangement of windows, including five ground-floor and three first-floor windows, two of which are half-dormers with hipped roofs. All are 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The eaves are low, and the roof is half-hipped to the left and hipped to the right, representing the lean-to roof of the outshot. A 20th-century door is located in the rear outshot and another in the right end. The right end of the building has a flat-roofed dormer with leaded glass rectangular panes.

Inside, the original framed walls appear well-preserved, featuring timbers of large scantling including large, curving braces. The axial joists of the original service room are substantial. The former hall is floored with a chamfered axial beam fixed to the chamfered arch braces of the medieval hall's open tie-beam truss. This truss has been cut through its centre, obscuring the original roof structure. The rest of the roof is a late 16th/early 17th-century replacement with clasped side purlins, utilizing a secondary wall plate atop the original. The fireplace, dating from the late 16th/early 17th century, is constructed of brick, with a chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel, and incorporates blocked openings for an oven and ash pit.

Myrtle Cottage is a noteworthy small medieval hall house. The outshots contain massive posts, suggesting great age, possibly original. Unusually, the jowls of the wall posts face outwards rather than inwards.