1-4 Brook Cottages

Two pairs of estate cottages, in a Tudor Gothic style, built between the 1850s and 1880s, on the Tortworth Estate for the Earl of Ducie; possibly by Foster and Wood of Bristol.

MATERIALS: local stone rubble with freestone dressings, plain tile roofs with decorative ridge details, and brick stacks.

PLAN: each of the two pairs is a mirror pair, with two principal ground floor rooms, to front and back, and a small scullery/utility room to the rear of the entrance.

EXTERIOR: each pair is of four bays and one and a half storeys, with shared central diamond-set ridge stacks and a deep hipped roof to the two inner bays; the outer bays are set back slightly, with lower, half-hipped roofs, with projecting gabled porches formed from uprights with moulded braces rising from a dwarf wall, the roof carried on scissor bracing and a central spinial with moulded pendant. A buttress with two offsets marks the centre of the shared elevation. The inner bays have a window to each of the ground and first floors; the ground-floor window, under a relieving arch, is stone mullioned and transomed, of six lights; the first-floor window is of two lights, stone-mullioned. All the glazing has been replaced with double glazed units set into the stone surrounds. The returns have a window to each of ground and first floors, a small, square single light to the ground floor, with a two-light stone mullioned window in the half-hipped gable. The return wall of number 4 is rendered. The projecting rear wing to each cottage is half hipped, with a central entrance door (that to number 4 is a uPVC replacement) and a two-light double-glazed uPVC casement window in segmental-arched openings to each of the ground and first floors. Number 3 has a small, late C20/early C21 single-storey conservatory; numbers 1 and 2 each have small lean-to additions in the same position.

INTERIOR: the interiors have some four-panelled doors, splayed window openings and moulded architraves and skirting boards. Number 4 has a wood-burning stove within the fireplace of the principal ground-floor room, which has no fire surround. The window reveal extends downwards to create a window seat. The rear kitchens and bathrooms have no detailing. A winder stair lit by a narrow fixed light window rises to a small first-floor landing, with doorways to the bedrooms set diagonally. There are some exposed roof timbers, all unchamfered.