Toll Cottage and Porch Cottage

Toll Cottage and Porch Cottage

Two cottages on the west side of High Street in East Budleigh, now converted into a single dwelling, later subdivided again. Parts may originate from the 16th century, rearranged as cottages probably in the late 17th or early 18th century, refurbished in the late 19th century, united to form a single cottage in the 20th century, and subsequently subdivided once more.

The buildings are constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings with stone rubble stacks topped with late 19th-century brick and 19th-century chimney pots. The roof is thatched, with a rear brick outshot carrying a slate roof.

The pair of cottages faces east onto High Street. The left (southern) cottage has a one-room plan with an end stack. The right cottage has a two-room plan with a central axial stack serving back-to-back fireplaces and a front lobby entrance. The right room may once have been the service end room of a 16th-century three-room-and-through-passage plan house; the remainder of that house is now occupied by the adjoining Maytree Cottage. Both cottages have tight winder stairs rising to the rear of the stacks and 19th-century service outshots across the rear.

Two storeys in height. The front elevation facing High Street is regular with three windows: one to the left cottage and a symmetrical two-window arrangement to the right cottage. At the left end is a 19th-century horizontal sliding twelve-pane sash window and a plank door to its right. To the right of this are two late 19th-century or early 20th-century casements with glazing bars, one either side of a 19th-century five-fielded panel door. Directly above each of these windows is a 19th-century three-light casement containing rectangular panes of leaded glass. The roof is gable-ended to the left and runs continuously with that over adjoining Maytree Cottage to the right. High up on the wall at the left end there is a small plaque recording the demolition in 1977 of a toll house with unusually fine architectural detail which formerly stood in front.

The interior is largely the result of 19th-century refurbishment, although this was probably superficial. All fireplaces are blocked by 19th and 20th-century grates and little structural detail is exposed. A single axial beam is exposed in the left end room, displaying a neat soffit chamfer and probably dating from the late 17th or early 18th century. The roof space is inaccessible; the lower parts of the principals visible are plastered over but indicate an A-frame truss roof. Some of the plaster is backed onto water reeds rather than wooden lathes, a type of construction usually 17th century but potentially later. The cottages offer only hints of a 17th-century date. However, the adjoining Maytree Cottage displays 16th-century features, making it likely that the right end room here belonged to that house. It is possible the row of cottages was created by dividing up and extending a large early house, meaning 16th and 17th-century features may remain concealed within Nos. 3 and 5.

The cottages form part of a group of attractive and varied outbuildings, most of them listed, which line High Street as it rises towards the Church of All Saints.