Church Stile Cottages

Church Stile Cottages, Woodbury

A group of three cottages occupying what was originally a single farmhouse, dating from the early 16th century with subsequent alterations and extensions. The building is constructed of roughcast cob on stone footings with a half-hipped thatched roof.

The original structure was a three-room through-passage plan house with an open hall (evidenced by sooting on the roof timbers), standing to the higher end to the right of the passage. A rear parlour wing was added in the 16th or early 17th century. The service-end and passage have since been demolished. The hall was later heated by an inserted external front lateral stack (now dismantled); the inner room remained unheated, while the parlour wing was provided with an end stack. When the wing was extended, this stack became internal and axial, with the extension now divided and occupied as separate cottages numbered 2 and 3. A large external end stack at the east end heats cottage number 3.

The building stands at two storeys. The front elevation (facing south) comprises what survives of the main range: a single two-light first-floor casement window under an eyebrow eave, a ground-floor door at the extreme left, remains of the external stack with a tiny window, and two 20th-century casement windows to the right.

The east elevation (facing Church Stile Lane) displays the gable end of the main range with a panelled door beneath a rectangular fanlight and a tiny window to the right; a two-light casement window to the first floor. The parlour wing and cottages form a four-window range with two- and three-light casement windows at first-floor level with lintels at eaves height; three two-light windows at ground floor and a door serving cottage number 2. At the extreme right end, a slight projection stands forward of the stack, probably marking a former smoking chamber. The external end stack features a large bake-oven bulge.

The rear of the wing contains one 19th-century casement window and two smaller, older windows with lintels at eaves level, with modern doors below.

Internally, the hall features a chamfered axial ceiling beam with scroll stops and a massive, undetailed stone fireplace lintel at the front. Late 17th-century panelling, re-used to the hall side of the timber-frame stud wall separating the hall from the inner room, survives. The parlour wing, divided from the inner room by rough timberwork, retains remains of a chamfered brick fire back from the former end stack. The roof timbers of the hall and inner room are smoke-blackened throughout. One jointed cruck is visible with apex morticed and pegged to a diagonal ridge piece, purlins, battening and thatch all heavily sooted. Heavily sooted wattling remains under the thatch at the east end, possibly the remnant of a smoke bay.

Cottage number 2 (now a single-room cottage) has an end fireplace with a roughly chamfered lintel backing onto the former end fireplace noted above, positioned to the left of a blocked window. Four chamfered cross ceiling beams with rough stops and contemporary joists survive, with windows retaining original lintels. A lath and plaster partition between cottages 2 and 3 is morticed into a jointed cruck, substantially modified when the roof was raised; remains of another jointed cruck, much altered, are visible.

Cottage number 3 has three roughly chamfered ceiling beams similar to those in cottage 2. One jointed cruck stands close to the end stack, morticed and pegged at the apex with evidence of a dovetailed collar (now removed) and purlins backing onto principals. The roof at this end is also heavily smoke-blackened, though whether this indicates a former open-hall type extension or stack seepage is unclear. The stack features a newel to the left-hand side (viewed internally), a door with 17th-century H-hinges, and a large smoking-chamber to the right.