Payne Cottage

Payne Cottage is a cottage dating from the early 18th century, with some rebuilding in the 19th century and eaves raised in the 1970s. It features colourwashed rendered cob on stone rubble footings, with walls raised using brick. The thatched roof has a plain ridge, is gabled at the left end, and hipped at the right end, with a left end stack and a projecting rear right lateral stack. The building has a two-room and through passage plan, and an outbuilding at right angles to the main range at the rear left has been converted into a kitchen. A change in the plane of the front wall indicates possible rebuilding at the right end. There are two staircases: one against the rear left wall accessed from the passage, and another rising from the right-hand room parallel to the partition wall of the passage. The building is said to have once functioned as two cottages, with the left-hand cottage consisting of the present smaller room, which had a now-blocked doorway on the rear wall and is said to have had a small detached kitchen. The cottage is two storeys high and has an asymmetrical three-window front with an approximately central plank front door and two-light casements with four panes per light. A small four-pane fixed window to the right of the front door lights the through passage.

Inside, the left-hand room features a chamfered cross beam with run-out stops, a second boxed-in cross beam, and an open fireplace with stone rubble jambs and a timber lintel, although this is now behind a later arrangement. There may have been a newel stair adjacent to the stack before the later stairs were added. The right-hand room has a 20th-century grate, which may conceal earlier features, and no exposed beams. The first floor contains three rooms, with the middle room subdivided in the 20th century. The doorframe to the rear of the passage is probably 18th century, chamfered and pegged. This is an attractive vernacular cottage typical of the region.