Bull Cottage

Bull Cottage is a mediaeval house, originally dating to the early 14th century, with alterations made in the 15th or 16th century. Later, it formed part of the stables of the Bull Hotel and was converted into a dwelling in the late 20th century. The front of the building was remodelled in the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It is constructed of coursed rubble with a Cotswold stone roof. The plan is generally L-shaped, though its precise layout is not fully clear.

The building is single-storey with an attic, featuring a gabled half dormer to the left. There are two 20th-century, three-light mullion windows on the ground floor, each with a dripstone, and a six-panel door with a wooden lintel to the left of the centre. A western gable is set at a different pitch, with a shaft protruding from the chimney-piece below and the base of a lost mediaeval chimney. The eastern gable has blocked openings, including a reused jamb stone with bead moulding. A lower extension is visible to the rear. The rear elevation contains 2:1 windows and a hipped, 20th-century porch positioned in an angle, masking a pair of fine late 13th or early 14th-century doorways set L-wise.

The interior is remarkable. Walls in the front part are later insertions. The plan consists of a large room and a kitchen wing. The front room has an arcade of four bays (interrupted by a 19th-century chimney) against the west wall; originally there were shelves beneath and cupboard doors above. The ceiling is supported by unconvincing joists, and above is a room with a fireplace whose jambs have the same ovolo mouldings as the cupboard arcade below. The lintel has a crenellated top, later adapted as joist bearers, from which a single ovolo-moulded shaft rises to the apex of the gable. A squint in the wall to the left of the fireplace looks towards a blocked quatrefoil gable-light. The back room is accessed by stone doorways with ball flower ornament on each floor – the upper doorway is reset and not in line with the lower one. This bay was open to the roof, featuring a raised cruck with arch braced collar and evidence of wind braces; a blocked opening to the east may have been a lost stair turret. A blocked hatch is located at ground floor level between the two parts. There is evidence of disturbance to the 1st floor south windows.

A drawing from 1840 depicts the front with an arched and moulded doorway and a left-hand window with ball-flower in the left-hand jamb; this may have been reused for the 1st floor door to the kitchen wing and features a segmental-headed rere-arch, like the ground floor doorways. The arcade of shelves and cupboards in the ground floor room suggests a possible use for displaying or storing merchandise, which implies a wealthy merchant’s house. Alternatively, it could have been used as a collegiate building, for example, a lazar house or hospice, given the presence of a buttery serving hatch.