Hope Cottage

Hope Cottage

A cottage built in the late 18th or early 19th century with a rear catslide outshot. A north extension was added around 1900 and rebuilt in 1977. Roof and replacement of doors and windows were carried out in the 20th century.

The walls are of red brick laid in Flemish bond to the front elevation and Flemish garden wall bond to the rear elevation, with a red clay cambered peg tile roof.

The cottage is a two-storey gabled building, three bays wide and two bays deep, with a single-storey north extension and rear catslide outshot. The west front has a central entrance door beneath a blocked circular window in the central bay, with three-light casement windows to each floor of the flanking bays, each light further divided into six panes. The doorcase has reeded pilasters, partially covered by later timberwork, and a fanlight containing replacement glass. There is a 20th-century boarded door with an upper window. The cottage has a red tiled roof with deep overhanging eaves and a substantial chimney stack against the south gable end.

The rear elevation is blank to the main range but has three windows to the catslide outshot, which has been extended to the north under a hipped tiled roof. These windows comprise a two-light casement with four panes to each light, and two fixed and top-hung windows. The north elevation has single-light and three-light casement windows flanking a half-glazed door to the 1977 extension, with two windows to the main range. Metal tie-plates are visible to the gable on this side.

The main doorway leads into a small entrance vestibule. Originally it would probably have led directly onto a straight-flight staircase, but this was partitioned off in the 20th century and the lower portion altered as a winder stairs accessed from the north. The staircase is otherwise partitioned from the flanking rooms by light timber-framing with some later replacement timbers. A dining room lies to the north and a lounge to the south. The lounge contains an inglenook fireplace with a bressummer beam and original bread oven. The former rear outshot is entered via a boarded door and contains a kitchen. A corridor leads through past a larder, bathroom, utility room and study. There are two bedrooms and a bathroom to the first floor, with some historic doors likely surviving.

The cottage has a clasped purlin roof with queen struts beside each gable end and a ridge board at the apex. The roof contains a number of replacement machine-cut timbers, especially to the rafters, indicating it has been rebuilt whilst reusing some original timbers such as struts and repositioned purlins.