Hill View Cottage

749/3/67 HILL MOOR ROAD 22-JAN-76 (South side) HILL VIEW COTTAGE

II HILL MOOR ROAD 1. 5121 (South side) ST 47 SW 3/67 Hill View Cottage II 2.

House, formerly a farmhouse dating from the mid C16 with later additions and alterations. It is constructed of painted local limestone rubble under a Double Roman clay tile roof with hall bay axial stack and east gable end stack.

Plan: It was initially of three room and cross passage plan, though now extended by one additional bay at each end.

Exterior: The house is of two storeys and four bays with a lean to extension to the west gable end and two storey later extension to the east. The south elevation has three modern casement windows on the ground floor, one to the west and two to the east and above the door to the cross passage. Above the easternmost window there is a similar timber casement at first floor. Approximately 30cm below the current eaves there is a horizontal ledge in the masonry, indicating the former wall plate height of the old roof. The north elevation is of similar format with one window below the cross passage door and one above the hall bay. There are three flat roofed lead clad dormers with timber casement windows breaking through the eaves. There are two squat but substantial buttresses, one capped with clay tiles.

Interior: The early plan form is still clearly discernable, though the passage has lost the screen dividing it from the lower service room, which contains a transverse floor beam with run out stops and a slot in the soffit to accommodate the vertical panels of the screen. This slot terminates short of the north wall indicating the location of the door into the service room. There is a massive axial chimney stack on the upper hall side of the passage incorporating a large bressumer with scrolled or run-out stops supporting the stack and a later bread oven inserted beneath. The hall bay ceiling comprises an intersecting structure made up of deeply chamfered beams with flat scroll or diamond stops. The central transverse and axial beams are pegged to chamfered beams framing the hall bay. There is a small winder stair set within the depth of the stack next to the entry from the passage to the hall. The inner room lies beyond, heated by a gable-end stack. Above the hall there is evidence of where the masonry wall of the cross passage has been heightened, indicating the building was formally thatched.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE Hill View Cottage, dating from the mid C16 is of special architectural interest on account of its plan form, which clearly identifies it as a farmhouse of the late medieval period and its structural carpentry, specifically the transverse floor beam, the chamfered intersecting ceiling beams of the hall bay and the massive axial chimney stack in the hall.

Listing NGR: ST4123770674