Stile Cottage

House. Late medieval, remodelled and probably subdivided in the 17th century, and extended in the 18th century and later. Built of limestone rubble with thatch roof and 17th-century stone stacks.

The building follows an L-plan, representing a medieval hall house with a probably 2-bay hall truncated to the right and with a storeyed chamber to the left. The stone walling is 17th-century and represents a rebuilding of the original medieval structure, possibly replacing timber-framed walling. This stonework continues through to the rear left wing, which is a 17th-century extension. At the same time the medieval house was truncated, a floor was inserted to the former open hall, and stacks were built to the gable ends of the remodelled original structure and to the rear gable of the 17th-century extension. The rear wing was further extended by 2 rooms in the 18th century and later. The existence of bread ovens to the right-hand and rear left stacks suggests that the medieval house was subdivided as 2 dwellings in the 17th century.

The exterior is one storey and attic. The main elevation, facing the remodelled medieval house, comprises a 3-window range with timber lintels over late 19th and 20th-century 2-light casements and a plank door to the right of centre. A 19th-century outshut with pantile roof extends to the right. The 5-window left-hand return has similar casements and a plank door to the gable end of the main block. A bread oven projection projects from the rear stack.

The interior reveals 17th-century structural elements including plank doors with strap hinges, beamed ceilings, and wood bressumers over open fireplaces to the right and rear left, which contain bread ovens. Important elements of the medieval house have survived, although much remains obscured beneath later plasterwork. The truncated hall retains chamfered principals of the former open truss with mortices for removed arch bracing. A mortice for a windbrace removed during the rebuilding of stone walls in the 17th century survives in the front. The hall was probably originally 2 bays. The 2-and-a-half-bay roof, including half of the truncated bay to the right and a narrow bay to the left of the original hall, is heavily smoke-blackened. It features clasped and tenoned purlins and a rare surviving example of wattle hurdling, also smoke-blackened, on which the thatch was set.

To the left of the hall is a collar truss with rod holes to the soffit of the collar for a removed wattle and daub partition, clasped purlins, and a diagonally-set ridge with halved and pegged yoke. This truss sits above a transverse beam with peg holes indicating an original wood partition, underpinned by a 17th-century stone wall and featuring a medieval stop-chamfered arched timber doorway to the rear. Joists of early type in the narrow bay to the left, of unknown original function but probably originally a cross passage, extend over the beam into the hall and may have formed an internal jetty. Further to the left, marking the extent of smoke blackening to the roof, is a similar truss with principals tenoned into the yoke with a similar apex. The transverse beam below has rod holes for a former partition, replaced by a stone wall in the 17th century. A further bay, rebuilt in the 17th century, lies to the left.