Church Green Cottages

Church Green Cottages

Two cottages occupying part of an original larger house, dating from the late 15th to early 16th century with major later 16th and 17th century improvements. The building was subdivided in the late 18th or 19th century. The structures are built of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble and brick stacks topped with 19th and 20th century brick. The roof is thatched, with slate covering the service extension of No. 1.

The two cottages face north. No. 1 occupies the inner two-room end to the left (east), while No. 2 occupies the hall and through-passage of the original three-room, later four-room-and-through-passage plan house. The service end adjoining to the right (west) has been demolished and completely rebuilt. The hall in No. 2 has a large projecting front lateral stack. Of the two rooms in No. 1, the inner room contains a brick rear lateral stack (probably a 19th century rebuild of the original) and the outer room has a late 18th to early 19th century end stack. The inner room also contains a rear projecting newel turret. A single-storey service outshot of 19th century date projects at right angles to the rear of the outer room serving No. 1.

The main block is now two storeys throughout. The overall front is irregular with four windows of various 19th and 20th century casements with glazing bars. The doorway to No. 1 is towards the left end and has a 17th century oak frame with chamfered surround and worn scroll stops, containing a 20th century door and semi-conical thatch hood. The front passage door to No. 2 at the right end is 20th century. The large hall stack is plastered but may be ashlar stone as it has weathered offsets; the shaft has been replaced with brick. The roof is hipped to the left and joins the roof of the adjoining house to the right. The rear wall includes the remains of a tiny unglazed 17th century oak two-light window frame with ovolo-moulded mullions under the eaves in the main inner room chamber (No. 1).

The interior reveals a house with a long structural history. The oldest exposed feature is the roof truss at the upper end of the hall, now closed and forming the party wall between the two cottages. This is probably a jointed cruck dating to the late 15th to early 16th century; the lower parts are plastered over. Only the apex is exposed in the roofspace, showing that the principals are held together by a yoke and finished to clasp a square-set ridge purlin (Alcock's apex type H). The truss is smoke-blackened on both sides, indicating that the late 15th to early 16th century house was open from end to end, divided by low partition screens and heated by an open hearth fire. One such low partition screen probably survives at the upper end of the hall but is mostly hidden. Only at the rear end on the hall side is a shouldered-headed doorway exposed, though an oak plank-and-muntin screen may be assumed. Between the passage and the hall in No. 2, the head beam of another oak plank-and-muntin screen shows, and more of the screen may survive plastered over towards the rear.

The inner room (No. 1) was floored over first, and the chamber was jettied over the screen into the hall. On the hall side, large oak floor joists project with rounded ends to carry the bressumer of the large-framed crosswall which infilled the original truss, probably in the mid 16th century. The crossbeam exposed in No. 1 is of large scantling and soffit-chamfered with run-out stops. The fireplaces were probably added in the late 16th century. That in No. 1 is blocked and probably rebuilt, but the hall fireplace in No. 2 is exposed. It is large with Beerstone ashlar sides, one containing a tiny fire-window light, and has an oak soffit-chamfered lintel. The hall was floored over about the same time or a little later. It has an intersecting beam ceiling with broad soffit-chamfers; the joists in each panel run in opposite directions to those in the neighbouring panels. Six of the nine panels are exposed. The remainder of the roof structure over the hall and passage was replaced in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The inner room end (No. 1) appears to have been extended from one to two rooms in the early 17th century. There is an oak crank-headed doorframe of that date in the rear wall from the outer room to the later service extension. The roof truss over the inner room is also of this date, a side-pegged jointed cruck with pegged and dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collar. The inner first-floor chamber has a relatively simple early 17th century ceiling of ornamental plasterwork, featuring a hand-run reeded cornice and similarly-moulded ribs making diagonal crosses, with moulded plaster thistle motifs filling the spaces.

The proximity of these cottages to the church and the relatively high standard of craftsmanship suggests that this was a church house. However, the moulded plaster diagonal crosses and thistle motifs suggest dedication to St Andrew rather than St Luke.