Brooke Cottage

Brooke Cottage is a detached cottage dating from the 17th century, located on the west side of Exton's Exmouth Road, near Woodbury. It is built with roughcast cob on stone footings, and has a gabled-end thatched roof. The original layout comprised two rooms, a through passage, and a continuous outshut to the rear. There are external brick stacks at each end, the left-hand stack being original. The front elevation has an almost symmetrical three-window arrangement; all windows are three-light casements, with four retaining their original HL hinges. A 20th-century tiled open porch has been added to the front. The rear of the cottage features three 18th or 19th-century first-floor casements, alongside later two-light windows on the ground floor, and one late-19th-century two-light window at the right-hand end. Inside the left-hand room are two chamfered ceiling beams, ovolo moulded with two fillets and moulded run-out stops, along with moulded joists. A rolled steel joist (rsj) now replaces the original bressumer between this room and the former passage. The right-hand room contains two plain chamfered crossbeams with run-out stops. The roof structure consists of three trusses with morticed principals at the apex, halved collars, and pegged joints. Brooke Cottage is part of a group of roughly contemporary cottages which also includes Nos.3 & 4, Exton and Orchard Cottage.