Tinker'S Cottage

Tinker's Cottage is a house dating from the late 16th century or early 17th century, located in Boscastle. The building is constructed of rendered and painted slate-stone rubble, topped with a rag slate roof that is partly covered with bitumen. It features gable ends and has a projecting stone rubble front lateral stack on the left and a stone rubble stack on the right gable end. There is a rear wing on the left, also made of painted and rendered stone rubble, with a rag slate roof and a stone rubble gable end stack.

The house has a two-room and cross passage plan, with the left-hand hall kitchen heated by the front lateral stack and the right-hand room, possibly a parlour, heated by the gable end stack. A service wing, likely added in the early 17th century, is located at the rear of the hall kitchen and consists of a one-room plan heated by an end stack. The building is two storeys high and has an asymmetrical front with two windows, as the ground rises steeply to the right.

On the left side, there is a 20th-century two-light casement with glazing bars, while the right side features late 18th-century two-light casements. The stone rubble open fronted porch has a lean-to roof and a late 18th-century two-panel inner entrance door. Above the porch, there is a 20th-century two-light casement to the left and a 19th-century two-light casement to the right, both set in gabled half dormers.

Inside, the cottage has been partly remodelled in the 19th century. The central cross passage is flanked by two fairly thick cross walls that extend to the first floor. The ceiling beams in the left-hand hall are from the 18th century and feature bowtell mouldings. The fireplaces have been remodelled in the 20th century, and there is a 19th-century staircase at the rear of the central passage. Several 18th-century two-panel doors are present on the first floor. Although a full inspection of the roof structure was not possible, at least one of the principal rafters appears to be curved, and the purlins seem to be trenched. In the rear service wing, one of the principal rafters is visible and also shows a pronounced curve. Tinker's Cottage is noted for being a particularly unaltered and picturesque house in the centre of Boscastle village.