3 And 5, The Green

Two cottages, originally a single house, are located on The Green in Otterton. They were built in the late 18th to early 19th century. The exterior is of plastered cob construction on a stone rubble base. The stacks are of stone rubble or brick, topped with 19th and 20th-century brick. The roof is slate, with replacement slate to the rear. The original house had a two-room plan facing north onto The Green, with a central through-passage containing the staircase. Shared end stacks serve the adjoining cottages at Nos. 1 and 7. The kitchen was located at the rear of the right-hand room and has a stack backing onto the main block. In the mid to late 19th century, the house was divided into two cottages. No. 5 occupies the original right-hand room and the kitchen outshot, while No. 3 includes the through-passage, the right-hand room, and the rear outshot. The two-storey front shows an asymmetrical arrangement of windows. A curving bay window with fixed panes and 30 panes of glazing bars is on the left-hand side of the ground floor, featuring flanking panelled pilasters, a plain entablature with a narrow dentil cornice, and a wrought iron window-box. The remaining ground-floor windows are late 19th- to early 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The central doorway to No. 3 contains a four-panelled door set within a pedimented doorcase, which has an entablature enriched with lozenge-shaped florettes. A 19th-century six-panel door has been inserted as the doorway to No. 5 on the right end. The interior contains mostly 19th-century joinery with no exposed carpentry. The roof was not inspected. Nos. 3 and 5, The Green, are part of a row of attractive contemporary cottages near St Michael’s Church and Otterton Mill, and represent an unusual mixture of vernacular cob and thatch with more formal detailing on the doorways and some windows.