Braggs Cottage

Braggs Cottage is a cottage, formerly a farmhouse, dating to the early 16th century, with significant alterations in the mid-16th and 17th centuries and further changes in the late 19th century. It is constructed of local stone and flint rubble, with a patch of cob in the rear wall, and has a thatched roof. A stone rubble stack incorporates a 19th-century brick chimney shaft.

The original plan was a two-room and through-passage layout facing east. The southern end originally contained an unheated dairy or buttery, later floored over and jettied into the upper end of the hall. Adjacent is the hall, with a lateral stack, and to the north, the through-passage. A service room at the north end was demolished in the 19th century. Initially, the building had an open roof divided by low partitions, lit by an open hearth fire. The buttery was floored over and jettied in the mid-16th century. The hall stack was likely added in the mid-to-late 16th century, though the fireplace was rebuilt in the late 19th century. The hall was itself floored over in the early to mid-17th century. The cottage is two storeys high.

The front elevation has a regular but asymmetrical appearance with late 19th and 20th-century casement windows containing glazing bars. The passage front doorway, at the right end, is behind a 20th-century gabled porch and features a 19th-century part-glazed plank door. The roof is hipped at each end, with a steeper pitch at the left.

Inside, the oak-framed screen partition between the hall and buttery is plastered over, with pegs over the doorway suggesting an original arched head. The hall fireplace now has two brick segmental arches, reflecting a 19th-century rebuild. A large-framed screen, potentially an original low partition, is located at the upper end of the hall. Above this is a jetty, with rounded ends to the inner room joists projecting under the first-floor crosswall. The hall and inner room crossbeams are chamfered with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops; the hall beam has particularly deep chamfers. The framed partition between the hall and buttery chambers includes a crank-headed door frame, possibly original and used for ladder access. The roof is supported by side-pegged jointed cruck trusses. The entire roof structure, including common rafters and the underside of the original thatch, is smoke-blackened from the original open hearth fire.

Braggs Cottage is part of a group of listed buildings within the hamlet of Rawridge.