Lilac Cottage

Lilac Cottage

A cottage of 16th and 17th-century date with later adaptations and alterations.

The building is of oak-frame construction encased in red brick and flint, with an oak roof covered in combed reed thatch. Some elevations are finished in render and the casement windows have modern uPVC units. There is a brick ridge stack.

The cottage is built on a north-east to south-west orientation close to the road edge. It comprises three bays and a single storey plus attic, with single-storey additions to each end.

The road front presents three irregular bays with an outshut to each end under a deep hipped roof covered in thatch. The ground-floor window openings have brick architraves and segmental heads, with brick and flint banding and a brick plinth. Three steel ties are bolted to the façade, and two eyebrow dormer windows light the attic floor. To the left, the outshut is brick to the ground floor and timber-framed above with rendered panels, incorporating the former jetty to the north end of the primary structure. The south-end outshut has a 20th-century external brick stack. The garden front is of brick and flint to the ground floor and rendered or painted brick to the first floor, with a door entrance featuring an adapted moulded frame to the right within a late 20th-century greenhouse, and a principal door entrance to the left of centre under a pitched roof canopy.

Internally, the principal entrance leads into a lobby formed by a chimneybreast with a doorway to each side. To the right, a chamfered oak doorframe within a timber-framed wall has an enclosed modern staircase behind it. This room contains a stop-chamfered beam spanning between a rebuilt brick inglenook with an oak bressumer at the south end and a close-studded wall at the north end. At the base of three studs in the north wall is an empty mortice, possibly for a former bench or floor structure. A pegged, chamfered doorframe to the right leads into the narrow north bay (the parlour or solar wing), which now contains a 20th-century bathroom. The north face of the close-studded wall to the former hall has a projecting sill beam with a long empty mortice. The north end wall of the parlour bay is also close-studded with a large sill beam. There is a deep overhang within the end bay (outshut) that is plastered and presumably contains a former jetty. The top of this wall leans inwards, and the sill beam does not span the entire length of the wall; there is a scarf joint to the wall plate.

The room to the left of the principal entrance has a brick inglenook fireplace with a short bressumer to the north wall and an enclosed 20th-century stair to the first floor. A chamfered beam with no stops spans between the fireplace and an oak-framed wall at the south end. Doors lead to the kitchen and cloakroom in the end outshut, where jowled posts appear in the front and rear walls; another jowled post stands by the staircase next to the principal entrance. The configuration and scantling of the timber framing at this end of the building indicates some adaptation and reuse.

The first floor has evidence of framing to all exterior walls and is arranged as three rooms divided by two closed trusses. An opening has been cut through the lower half of the south truss tie-beam. The central room has a stop-chamfered beam and a sealed fireplace. The north closed truss has brick lower panels and plaster upper panels, with an inserted door to the right leading to the former solar. The north end wall is framed. Smoke-blackened roof timbers above the hall are incorporated into the present roof, which has been altered for the insertion of the brick stack. The north truss has a king post.

The building contains 19th-century joinery with ironmongery throughout, including doors, panelling and cupboards. Pine and elm floorboards are present in some rooms.