The Old House And Minster Cottage

This is a house, now divided into two dwellings, dating back to the 17th century, with extensions and alterations made in the 18th and 19th centuries. The walls are constructed of shale rubble and cob, partly painted, with some dressed granite jambstones and lintels. The roofs are covered in asbestos slate and have gable ends. The building features brick chimneys, including one over a gable end with an oven projection, a gabled lateral stack in the middle of the front, and chimneys to the front and rear of a cross wing.

Originally designed with a three-room through-passage plan, the lower room on the right of the passage was rebuilt in the 18th century as a projecting wing. A further front wing was added around the early 19th century, creating an overall U-shaped plan.

The west front is irregular, with two windows on the first floor and a 20th-century window above the left-hand doorway. There are projecting blind gable ends from the early 19th century wing (left) and the 18th-century cross wing (right). The main front has a gable lateral stack to the right of the middle. The original doorway has been altered, with a 20th-century door and window above. Ground and first-floor windows to the left of the stack have eaves that were raised in the 18th or 19th century. Windows are 16-pane, two-light casements. A doorway near the angle on the left is likely a 19th-century addition when the house was divided.

The south wall of the cross wing features three windows to the ground and first floor from the early 19th century, with 16-pane hornless sash windows. However, the ground floor opening on the left has been widened and now contains a doorway with sidelights and a hood.

Internally, there are many 18th-century features, including dado panelling to the rear right room, numerous two-panel doors, bowtell moulded beams, and a dog-leg closed-string column-turned baluster staircase. The lateral fireplace in the hall retains a 17th-century straight chamfered spine beam with run-out stops and an oak lintel. The roof structure is largely pegged and 18th-century, except above the chamber over the hall where the feet of 17th-century trusses are visible below the ceiling level. It is the only house in the village with a three-room plan, and despite later alterations, it retains good features from the 18th century.