Halls And Halls Cottage

The property comprises two cottages, Halls and Halls Cottage, dating to the late 17th century with an early 19th-century refurbishment and a circa 1970 extension. The walls are plastered cob on large pebble foundations; the stacks appear to have been rebuilt with 19th-century brick; the roof is corrugated iron (formerly thatch) with slate on the extension and outshot.

The cottages are situated under a continuous gable-ended roof facing west. Halls, the cottage on the right (southern end), has two rooms, the inner room served by an axial stack and the outer room by a slightly projecting, early 19th-century replacement end stack. Halls Cottage, on the left (northern end), has one room with an end stack and a 20th-century single-story extension recessed from the front. A continuous secondary slate-roofed outshot runs along the rear of both cottages. The main block is two storeys high.

The front elevation has a regular but not symmetrical 4-window arrangement with late 19th and 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars; three windows are present on Halls and one on Halls Cottage. Halls has a 20th-century flat-roofed porch in front of its central doorway. The left end of the main block (Halls Cottage) appears to have been rebuilt with plastered brick or stone rubble, resulting in an abrupt change in wall thickness, and corbels out at the top with a pair of broad ovolo mouldings to maintain the eaves line. The original doorway to Halls Cottage was likely at the left end but was moved circa 1970 to the end wall through a porch in front of the contemporary extension.

Inside Halls, the inner room fireplace has been blocked, while the outer room fireplace is early 19th century with a rebuilt stack. The inner room retains a 17th-century axial beam, soffit-chamfered with one scroll stop remaining. The outer room has a plain soffit-chamfered crossbeam. The roof structure was replaced circa 1930. In Halls Cottage, the fireplace is blocked by a 20th-century grate, and the late 17th-century crossbeam is plain and soffit-chamfered. The roof was not inspected.

Despite 19th and 20th-century alterations, the basic form of the 17th-century cottages remains, and they form an attractive pair.