Squalls Cottage

Cottage, C18, with later alterations and extensions.

MATERIALS: constructed from roughly coursed Chilmark stone, with stone dressings, and with brick chimneystacks and a thatched roof.

PLAN: the building stands to the west of Squalls Lane. It has a linear plan form, orientated roughly north-south, with late-C20 extensions on the east and north elevations.

Internally it has two principal rooms with wide fireplaces at either gable end. To the south a stair, rebuilt, leads to the first floor. There is an extension to the north, and a porch extension to the east.

EXTERIOR: a vernacular building of a single storey with an attic, with a pitched, thatched roof and gable end stacks.

The principal elevation faces roughly east. There is a three-light window with chamfered stone mullions on the right, and a second window opening on the left. The central section of the ground-floor is obscured by wide porch extension, dating from the 1990s*. Within the porch the openings into the main elevation have been reconfigured, with one doorway blocked, and another turned into a window. At attic level there is a pair of dormers on the right, and a window opening on the left beneath the eaves. The gable ends have coped upstands with moulded kneelers, with internal stacks built in brick above the apex.

The rear, roughly west-facing elevation has three irregular windows to both storeys. Two of these are in historic dressed stone architraves: a two-light opening to the right, and a single-light casement to the centre. At attic-level are two dormers on the right, and to the left, an opening below the eaves. The differing size of the masonry at either end of the building suggests two phases of construction.

The northern extension, dating from the 1990s, is a single storey with a window opening on each elevation and a hipped, thatched roof*.

INTERIOR: entrance is into the southern half of the building, which has been subdivided to form a kitchen and WC. There is a wide fireplace on the south gable wall with a deep bressummer with taper marks, and a spine beam with concealed joists. The stair was reconstructed in the 1990s. The floor level steps down within the northern cell, which has a transverse bean with chamfers and ogee stops, and exposed joists to the ceiling. A wide fireplace has a brick bread oven and a deep bressummer. A hollow in the masonry to the north-east suggests the location of former a winder stair.

On the first floor the principal rafters of the roof structure are partially exposed; these are collar trusses with a purlin. Within the loft space there are coupled rafters, with no ridge piece. The timbers of the wall plates appear to have been cut to accommodate the dormer windows.

• Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the C20 porch and single-storey northern extension are not of special architectural or historic interest.