Bowerings Cottage

Bowerings Cottage is a late 17th- to early 18th-century cottage with 19th-century additions, located near Wembworthy Bridge. The cottage is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings, with cob stacks topped with 20th-century brick and a thatched roof, with corrugated iron to outshots. Originally, it was a two-room cottage facing southeast, with a central stair and end stacks. Rear outshots may be original. A 19th-century addition forms a third room at the northeast end, slightly set back from the main front, and a 19th-century outshot is on the left end. The front has three windows to the main block, and a fourth window on the 19th-century extension, creating a nearly symmetrical three-window view. The three first-floor windows of the main block are likely 18th-century, three-light, oak, flat-faced mullion windows with leaded rectangular panes, each protected by a thatched eyebrow. The remaining windows are 19th and 20th-century casements with glazing bars. A 19th-century timber porch with a hipped thatched roof shelters the central front door. The main roof is gable-ended to the left and hipped to the right. The interior remains largely original and has few modernisations. There are no ground floor crossbeams, but instead, large-scantling joists. The fireplace in the right-hand room is blocked. The left-hand room’s fireplace has stone rubble jambs and a soffit-chamfered oak lintel, and includes an original cloam oven on the left, and a 19th-century brick-lined oven with a cast iron door on the right. The roof is inaccessible, but the feet of what are probably original A-frame trusses are visible.