Knapp Cottage

SY 29 NW WIDWORTHY

4/138 Knapp Cottage -

• II Cottage, former farmhouse, latterly a keeper's cottage. Late C16 - early C17, reduced in size in the mid - late C19, some C20 modernisation. Colour-washed local stone and flint rubble; stone rubble stack and chimneyshaft; thatch roof. Plan and development: 2-room plan cottage facing south and built down the hillslope. The smaller room, uphill at the left (west) end, is unheated. The right (east) room has a gable-end stack. Circa 1960 the 2 rooms were united by removing the partition and service rooms provided in a rear extension. In fact this is the unheated inner room and hall of a C16 3-room-and-through-passage plan house. The passage and service end room were demolished in the C19. The hall was probably (though not certainly) open to the roof originally but the chimneystack was an original feature. If the hall was open then it was floored over in the early C17. 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular front fenestration with 2 ground floor windows and one first floor window rising into the thatch, all are C20 casements with glazing bars. At the right end the oven housing projects. The roof is gable-ended. The doorway is in the right end (from the site of the passage) and it contains a late C19 - early C20 plank door. Interior: although the partition between the former hall and inner room has been removed the headbeam of an oak plank-and-muntin screen remains and part of the screen remains as wainscotting against the end wall. The former hall has a large Beerstone ashlar fireplace with oak lintel and chamfered surround. The oven here looks like a C19 insertion. The hall crossbeam is chamfered with step stops. The roof is carried on 2 clean side-pegged jointed cruck trusses.

Listing NGR: SY2258398688