Maytree Cottage

Maytree Cottage is a cottage dating back to the 16th century, with probable refurbishment in the 17th and 18th centuries, and further alterations in the late 19th century and modernisation around 1980. The walls are plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble or brick stacks topped with 19th and 20th century brick, and a thatched roof. A plastered brick projection with a slate roof extends from the rear. The cottage originally appears to have been part of a 16th-century three-room-and-through-passage plan house, with the inner room located at the right (northern) end, making the survival of this style unusual in size. The front door is on the left (southern) end of the front facade, and there is a doorway in the opposite rear wall, although there is no partition between the presumed passage and hall. The inner room has an end stack, while the likely hall (the left room) has a rear lateral stack – this interpretation relies on the adjoining left room in 5 High Street being the original service end room. Rear outshots were added in the 19th century. The cottage is two stories high and has a two-window front with 20th-century casements with glazing bars on the ground floor and 19th-century casements containing rectangular panes of leaded glass on the first floor. The front doorway has a 20th-century door. The gable-ended roof continues over the adjoining No.5 High Street to the left. Internally, the main room, possibly the hall, shows only a 20th-century crossbeam, possibly delineating the line of an upper passage screen. The fireplace is also a 20th-century rebuild. However, at the upper end of the room is an unusual oak plank-and-muntin screen with chamfered muntins that have rounded corners instead of the usual chamfer with masons mitres over the panels, which is either a later addition or an unusually early feature. The small inner room contains no early carpentry detail. On the first floor, the hall truss is plastered over, making the roofspace inaccessible, but its shape suggests a jointed cruck to the rear and a straight principal to the front. Maytree Cottage is part of a group of attractive and varied listed buildings that line High Street, leading up to the Church of All Saints.