Dunkeswell Post Office, Bankside Cottage And Spring Cottage

DUNKESWELL DUNKESWELL ST 10 NW 5/26 7 Dunkeswell Post Office, Bankside - Cottage and Spring Cottage GV II 2 adjoining cottages, one including the Post Office. Late C17 - early C18 with C18 and C19 extensions, Spring Cottage was thoroughly refurbished in 1987. Mostly plastered local stone rubble with some cob; stone rubble stacks topped with C19 and C20 brick; thatch roof. Plan and development: L-plan building. The main block faces south-west and it is occupied by the Post Office and Bankside Cottage. This has a 3-room plan. The right (south-east) room is narrower and lower than the rest of the main block and it has a gable-end stack. The centre room has an axial stack backing onto the right end room and the left room (now used as the Post Office) has a rear lateral stack. There was once a through-passage between the left and centre rooms but the rear of this passage was blocked in the C20 by the staircase and a bathroom. Spring Cottage is a 2-room plan cottage projecting at right angles to rear of the left room of the front block. The first room of Spring Cottage shares the stack behind the Post Office; it serves back-to-back fireplaces. Spring Cottage has been very thoroughly refurnished but it seems that it and the Post Office room at the front was the late C17 - early C18 house. The passage and centre room of Beckside Cottage may be contemporary or an C18 addition. The stack in the centre room may be a C20 insertion. The right end room is probably a C19 addition. Both are 2 storeys with a C20 single storey kitchen extension (belonging to Beckside Cottage) in the angle of the 2 wings. Exterior: the main block (Post Office and Beckside Cottage) has a regular 3:1 window front of C20 casements with leaded glass in effect of rectangular panes. The former passage front doorway and the Post Office front doorway further left both contain C20 doors behind contemporary thatch-roofed porches. The roof is hipped to left and gable-ended to right. Spring Cottage has C20 casements with glazing bars, a C20 door and the roof is gable-ended. Interior: in the main block (the Post Office and Beckside Cottage) no carpentry detail is exposed in the right end room and the fireplace is a C20 grate. In the centre room there is a chamfered crossbeam witn runout stops and the fireplace here is another C20 grate. No beam shows in the Post Office but the chamfered oak lintel of a large fireplace is exposed here. The roof is inaccessible although the bases of straight principals show, their large scantling suggesting late C17 or C18 A- frame trusses. In Spring Cottage nearly all the carpentry (including the roof structure) was replaced in 1987 although there is a stone rubble fireplace with a chamfered oak lintel and (in the same room) a chamfered and step-stopped crossbeam. Both are late C17. This building forms a group with other traditional thatch-roofed houses in the vicinity of the Church of St Nicholas (q.v).

Listing NGR: ST1406907664