Hillview Cottage Penstone Cottage Penstone Cottages Pentstone Cottages Well Cottage

A row of four cottages, Hillview Cottage, 2 Penstone Cottages, Well Cottage, and Penstone Cottage, is located in Colebrooke Penstone. The cottages date from the late 16th to early 17th century, with alterations made in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The walls are plastered cob on rubble footings, with stone rubble and cob stacks topped with 19th and 20th century brick, some of which is plastered. The roofs are thatched.

The cottages face southwest. Hillview Cottage, at the left (northwest) end, has a two-room plan. The larger left room has a projecting cob stack with a secondary oven projection. Adjoining to the right is No. 2 Penstone Cottages, which has a one-room plan and a left-hand passage, along with a rear lateral cob stack. Well Cottage and Penstone Cottage are also adjoining, each with a single-room plan and rear lateral stacks. All cottages have 20th-century service outshots to the rear, and feature eight windows across the front, with various 20th-century casements including glazing bars. Each cottage has a two-window front. Only Hillview Cottage has a symmetrical arrangement about a central door. A Victorian post box is set into the cobbing between Hillview Cottage and 2 Penstone Cottages. The roof is half-hipped to the left and hipped to the right.

The interiors display a range of 17th, 18th, and 19th-century detail. All fireplaces have plain oak lintels with 19th-century brick ovens. In Hillview Cottage, the larger room has a late 17th- to early 18th-century soffit-chamfered spine beam with run-out stops, and a cob crosswall separates the two rooms. In 2 Penstone Cottages, there are no exposed ground floor beams, though the inaccessible roof space reveals the feet of two A-frame trusses. A side-pegged jointed cruck truss is visible in the first-floor partition. Well Cottage features a late 17th- to early 18th-century soffit-chamfered crossbeam. A likely late 16th- to early 17th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen, with roughly-finished, vaguely-chartered muntins, is present in the cob party wall with 2 Penstone Cottages, alongside a blocked doorway that only rises to first-floor level; the first-floor party wall is timber-framed. Penstone Cottage has a late 17th- to early 18th-century soffit-chamfered spine beam with run-out stops, with a knock-through to a 20th-century service outshot behind the fireplace. The roof spaces of all cottages have not been inspected.

The presence of a jointed cruck truss and plank-and-muntin screen suggests that a small late 16th- to early 17th-century farmhouse was converted into cottages in the late 17th to early 18th century.