Avon Cottages

Avon Cottages is a house located on Church Street in Durrington, dating from around the 16th century or early 17th century. It was remodelled in the late 17th century or early 18th century, extended in the 18th century, and subdivided in the 18th or 19th century. Number 2 is timber framed with a roughcast front, while Number 1 is built of painted English bond brick with large dressed stone quoins. The building features a thatched roof with gabled ends and brick gable end stacks, one of which is truncated.

The layout consists of a two-room plan, with each room heated by a gable end stack and a staircase located between the two rooms. The right-hand room, Number 2, is the original part of the house, which may have included Number 3 to the right and was likely open to the roof with an open hearth fire before being floored in the late 17th or 18th century. In the 18th century, a one-room plan addition, Number 1, was added to the left end, which includes a cellar. The subdivision into one-room plan cottages occurred in the 18th or 19th century.

The exterior is one storey with an attic and has an asymmetrical front. Number 1 on the left has a doorway with a 20th-century door and a window with a 20th-century casement in a segmental arch opening. Number 2 features a 20th-century shop front and three small attic casements under eyebrowed eaves. At the rear, Number 2 has exposed timber framing and a partly demolished brick oven, while Number 1 has eyebrowed eaves.

Inside, Number 1 contains a reused chamfered axial beam with hollow step stops and a partly demolished fireplace. The room to the right, Number 2, has a roughly chamfered axial beam, exposed joists, and a chamfered cambered timber fireplace lintel on brick jambs. The cellar under Number 1 features what appears to be a reused wall post as a ceiling beam. The roof over Number 2 has large diagonally set side purlins, common rafters, collars nailed to the underside of the purlins, and battens, all of which are smoke blackened except for the areas where the rafters, battens, and collars have been replaced.