Court Place Cottage Pump Cottage

Two cottages, formerly a single farmhouse. The building originates from the early-to-mid 16th century as a farmhouse and underwent major improvements in the late 16th and 17th centuries. It was divided into two or more cottages during the 18th century, when Court Place Cottage was rebuilt. Pump Cottage, the surviving older part, was modernised with a new service extension around 1976.

The structure comprises plastered cob on stone rubble footings. There is one cob chimney stack; the others are stone rubble with plastered brick tops. The two adjoining cottages occupy what was originally a three-room-and-through-passage plan house facing west. Pump Cottage occupies the left (northern) end and comprises the former service end room, through-passage and hall of the original farmhouse, with a two-storey service rear block built at right angles behind the service end room and passage around 1976. Court Place Cottage occupies the right (southern) end and represents an 18th-century rebuild of the former inner room, with a projecting end stack.

Both cottages are two storeys. The front elevation is regular though not symmetrical, with four windows overall—two each—comprising 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. The first floor left casement of Court Place Cottage contains variously-sized rectangular panes of leaded glass with margin panes. The first floor windows of Pump Cottage are half dormers; those of Court Place Cottage rise slightly into the thatch. The roof is gable-ended to the right and half-hipped to the left, stepping up from Pump Cottage to Court Place Cottage. The rear block roof is also half-hipped.

Pump Cottage retains a roughly central doorway to the original passage, containing a late 16th-century oak frame with a flat-arched head and chamfered surround. An identical doorframe also survives at the rear of the passage. The front has a 20th-century stable-type door and a circa 1976 porch with a hipped thatch roof supported on timber twisted baluster-like posts. Court Place Cottage has an entrance on the end in front of the stack, with a 19th-century stable-type door sheltered by a contemporary porch with a lean-to thatch roof.

The interior of Pump Cottage preserves significant 16th and 17th-century features from the original farmhouse. The oldest exposed feature is the original three-bay roof, carried on two side pegged-jointed cruck trusses. The section over the hall, including the underside of the thatch, is smoke-blackened, as is the section over the service end room, though only slightly. This sooting indicates that the original house was open to the roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The service end was floored over whilst the open hearth was retained in the hall.

The lower passage screen is plastered over but may be a 16th or 17th-century screen. The service end was floored over in the late 16th century and has a soffit-chamfered and step-stopped half beam against the end wall. An axial beam with empty mortices from removed posts and stave holes from wattle-and-daub infill shows the room was then divided into two small rooms. The rear wall includes a contemporary three-light oak window frame with chamfered mullions, narrow lights and arch-headed lights, now blocked but never glazed. The fireplace appears to be an 18th-century insertion.

The hall contains a large and impressive plastered cob fireplace with an oak lintel having a broad soffit chamfer, supported on the right side by a large oak post with jowled head. This fireplace was probably inserted in the late 16th or early 17th century. At the same time or shortly after, a chamber was built over the passage jettying into the hall as far as the front of the chimney breast. About the same period the hall was floored over by a large axial beam, soffit-chamfered with large pyramid stops.

Court Place Cottage appears to be a complete rebuild. It has a probably 18th-century axial beam with broad soffit chamfer and contemporary fireplace with similarly-finished oak lintel.