Crabbs Cottage Including Barn Adjoining At The North East

Crabbs Cottage, including barn adjoining at the north east

House, possibly of early 16th-century origins, remodelled and perhaps extended in the late 16th century (with a datestone of 1675 on the front wall), with late 20th-century repairs. The building is constructed of whitewashed rendered cob and stone rubble with a thatched roof, gabled at the left end and half-hipped at the end of the barn wing. Most of the thatch to the rear of the ridge has been replaced with slate. There are four stacks: one at the left end and two axial stacks, all now with modern brick shafts.

The plan is L-shaped, with the main range facing west as a single-depth range four rooms wide with an outshut. The right-hand (south) room is now incorporated into a barn wing which adjoins the house at right angles and projects to the front. The current arrangement comprises a small parlour with a stair cell behind at the left (north) end; next south, a room heated by a comparatively small stack butted against an incomplete plank and muntin screen on its south side; a large heated room with comparatively plain carpentry detail; and at the south end (now part of the barn wing), an unheated room. There are no thick transverse walls, and both axial stacks are associated with thin partitions. The present entrance is directly into the first room from the left, although there may originally have been a through passage in the centre of the house.

Without access to the roof apex, it is difficult to confirm with certainty whether there is a medieval open hall core, but this seems highly likely. A soot crust survives on the south side of a disused truss above the first room from the right, representing either the remains of a room with an open hearth or a smoke bay, perhaps to a lower-end kitchen. The axial stack in the next room to the north, probably the original hall, appears to be secondary, perhaps replacing an earlier lateral stack. Graffiti scratched on the north side screen includes a date of the 1540s. The stair cell, entered through an original doorway in the screen, contains a probably 17th-century dog-leg stair. The stair cell and front left room may have been the original inner room. The barn is probably an 18th-century addition.

The exterior shows two storeys with an asymmetrical five-window front. There is a 20th-century recessed two-leaf front door to the left of centre with a segmental arched doorway and a datestone of 1575 over the door. The windows are two- and three-light, probably 20th-century timber casements with glazing bars. The inner return of the barn has a 19th or 20th-century door, while the outer return has a full-height doorway and three windows; the end wall has a garage door.

Interior features include chamfered and step-stopped crossbeams with plank and muntin screens. The left-hand front room has a chamfered axial beam. The room next right has a chamfered step-stopped crossbeam with plank and muntin screens at both sides; the left-hand screen has muntins chamfered and stopped with an original doorframe into the stair cell. The right-hand screen is interrupted by the stack. The next room right has two rough crossbeams and an open fireplace with a bread oven. A doorframe with a cranked lintel on the rear wall leading into the outshut may be the original rear door of the passage. The stair, presumed to be a 17th or early 18th-century insertion, has plain newel posts and a handrail with no balusters.

The roof shows side-pegged jointed cruck construction. A closed truss rises above the left-hand plank and muntin screen, with the partition infill partly removed to create an axial passage along the rear wall of the first floor. A closed truss above the right-hand room within the house has a soot crust on the exposed timbers and purlins. In the extreme right-hand room (in the barn), there is a framed partition behind the axial stack. A jointed cruck truss survives in the barn with only one cruck foot surviving, supported on a timber pad. The trusses in the barn wing are of 18th-century character.

This is an intriguing house with good interior features and an important roof structure, picturesquely sited. It has group value with Curlditch and the pair of cottages to the west.