Primrose Cottage Rose Cottage

Rose Cottage and Primrose Cottage

Two cottages formerly comprising a single farmhouse, with origins in the 16th century and substantially rebuilt in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Later 17th-century alterations followed, with refurbishment in the 19th century and again in 1980.

The buildings are constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings. They have stone rubble chimney stacks, one featuring a stone ashlar chimney shaft, while the others are plastered brick. The roof is slate, originally thatch. The cottages face south-west and occupy what was formerly a four-room-and-through-passage farmhouse plan. They stand two storeys high with a gable-ended roof.

Rose Cottage occupies the north-western end and comprises the small unheated inner room, the hall with a projecting front lateral stack, and the through passage. A tight winder stair in a turret projects to the rear at the upper end of the former hall. Primrose Cottage occupies the right end, consisting of the two service rooms—the inner room with an axial stack backing onto the outer room, and the outer room itself with a projecting end kitchen stack. Another tight winder stair in a turret projects to the rear of the inner room here.

The front elevation is irregular with five 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars. Both the front passage door to Rose Cottage and the door to Primrose Cottage's right end room are late 19th to early 20th-century part-glazed plank doors. The projecting hall stack is plastered, but the double shaft of sandstone ashlar with weathered offsets, probably from the 17th century, is exposed.

The interior retains features from all main building phases. The small inner room, probably a dairy, is now the kitchen of Rose Cottage and contains no exposed carpentry. The hall features a late 16th to early 17th-century fireplace built of dressed conglomerate stone blocks, with an oak lintel bearing an ovolo moulding, though the stops are obscured as the fireplace has been reduced in width. A relieving arch sits over the lintel. The axial beam is contemporary, with deep soffit chamfers and late step stops. The double shaft on the hall stack suggests a contemporary first-floor fireplace, though none is now visible. The hall roof truss is plastered over, but its shape clearly suggests a jointed cruck truss form; the roofspace here was inaccessible during inspection, though the previous listing reported timbers smoke-blackened from open hearth fire. All internal partitions are plastered, though since most lie on the lines of 16th or 17th-century partitions, oak frames may be hidden beneath.

The first service end room has a large 17th-century fireplace of conglomerate stone with an oak lintel, soffit-chamfered with worn, possibly scroll, stops. The axial beam is boxed in. The outer room has been much altered; the fireplace has a replacement lintel and the crossbeam has been replaced, though one half beam is probably 17th-century, with a rough soffit chamfer and worn, possibly scroll, stops. Two doors at this end are late 17th to early 18th-century two-panel doors. The roof over both service rooms is early or mid 17th-century, comprising side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collars, one of which is fashioned from smoke-blackened timber.