Church Cottage

Church Cottage is a mid to late 17th-century cottage, later refurbished in the mid to late 19th century. It was originally part of a larger house. The cottage is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with a stone rubble stack featuring a chimney shaft from the mid to late 17th century built of thin brick—a rare survival in Devon. It has a thatched roof. The two-room plan cottage sits slightly set back from the road, adjoining Church Stile Cottage and facing east. In the 19th century, it was divided from Church Stile Cottage and refurbished, with a porch and stairwell added to the front left (southern) end in the angle between the cottage and the end wall of Church Stile Cottage. The stack is shared with Church Stile Cottage. The cottage is two storeys high. The front has an irregular arrangement of windows: three late 19th- to early 20th-century casements with glazing bars to the ground floor, and a fourth window on the stair turret. There are two 19th-century casements with rectangular panes of leaded glass on the first floor. A 20th-century plank door is located on the side of the stair turret. The roof is gable-ended to the right and runs continuously over the stair turret and alongside the roof of Church Stile Cottage. The chimney shaft projects forward and back around the flues of both cottages and is constructed of thin brick with soffit-moulded coping, extended with 19th-century brick, and topped with 19th-century chimney pots. The gable end has another 20th-century plank door and a pair of tall 19th-century casements with glazing bars, as well as a ventilator at the top. Shaped bargeboards decorate the gable. The interior mainly exhibits 19th-century features, including a large blocked fireplace. The roof is inaccessible, but the bases of the principals indicate A-frame trusses, which, given their substantial scantling, suggest a 17th-century origin. It appears that Church Cottage was originally part of a larger house with Church Stile Cottage, built as part of a mid to late 17th-century refurbishment. The fireplace's size and its relationship to the adjoining house suggest a possible semi-industrial use, such as a brewhouse or bakehouse. Church Cottage is situated within a group of attractive and listed houses along the High Street, and its proximity to the church suggests it may have originally served as a church house.