The Old Ship And Windmill Cottage

The Old Ship and Windmill Cottage are two attached houses, originally a public house. A possible late 17th-century core exists within The Old Ship, with an early 18th-century refronting. Windmill Cottage is also early 18th-century, with early 19th-century alterations and refenestration. The construction is of coursed squared rubble, formerly rendered, with stone dressings, ashlar copings, and Roman tile roofing with end gable brick stacks to the roadside ranges, and a pantile roof with an end ashlar stack to the rear range.

The building's plan suggests a possible 17th-century range to the rear of The Old Ship, with a later addition facing the road, which may have been refronted in the mid-18th century. A further, lower southern extension now forms Windmill Cottage. Both ranges have double-depth plans.

The two-storey east front of The Old Ship has a five-window range, while Windmill Cottage has a two-window range. The Old Ship’s front is symmetrical, featuring a central doorway, ground and first floor continuous strings, and a defaced datestone above the central first-floor window. All windows are twelve-pane sashes in edge-moulded stone architraves. The doorway has a plain architrave with a flat stone hood on brackets and a part-glazed panelled door. Both return walls have a two-light chamfered mullion window to the upper floor.

Windmill Cottage features a bow to the right with early 19th-century tripartite windows in flush limestone surrounds, and central twelve-pane sashes to both floors. This bow is connected to The Old Ship by a continuation of the string course above the ground-floor windows. A round-arched doorway is located to the left, with steps leading up to a late 20th-century panelled door and a semicircular fanlight. Small, late 20th-century three/six sash windows are positioned under cambered heads either side of the doorway, and an early 19th-century twelve-pane sash with thin glazing bars is present on the first floor.

The interior remains uninspected.

The inn served as a staging post on the turnpike road between Bath and Bristol. The height above the first-floor windows and the presence of mullion windows at this level on the return walls of The Old Ship suggest a refronting took place.