Knathorne

Knathorne is a pair of cottages, originally a farmhouse, dating from the early to mid 17th century with a possible earlier core, and refurbished in the early 18th century. The construction is of plastered cob on rubble footings, with rubble stacks topped with mostly 19th-century brick, and a thatched roof. The original layout was a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing south-east, with a former inner room at the north-east end. Rear blocks extend at right angles behind the former service and inner rooms. A large axial hall stack backs onto the passage and a projecting end stack serves the service room. The left cottage occupies the former passage, service room, and rear block, while the right cottage occupies the former hall, inner room, and rear block.

The front has an irregular 5-window facade with 19th and 20th-century casements and glazing bars. The hall features an unusually wide 7-light 19th-century window with a large central pane; the other lights contain smaller panes, some of which are early glass. Two first-floor casements at the left end also have small panes. Both cottages have plank doors; the left door leads to the original passage, and the right door to the former inner room. The roof is hipped at each end, and the left-end stack has a tall chimney shaft mainly of 19th-century brick. Both rear blocks are gable-ended.

The interior of the left cottage reveals mostly early 18th-century features, including a 2-panel door with ornate fleur-de-lys finials through a cob cross wall, other 2-panel doors with HL hinges on the first floor, and a service room featuring a plastered cross beam and a volcanic rubble fireplace with a plain oak lintel resting on oak plates; the right side of the fireplace was altered in the 19th century with the addition of a brick side oven. A rear archway leads to an early 18th-century dogleg staircase with turned posts and balusters, a closed string, and shaped handrails. The right cottage displays mostly 19th-century features, but the inner room has an exposed early 18th-century cross beam, chamfered with run-out stops, and a 17th-century chamfered and scroll-stopped door frame on the first floor between the hall and inner room chambers. The roof was apparently renewed in the 18th century, consisting of a series of A-frame trusses with pegged lap-jointed collars and extended tenons to seat the ridge; a remaining early 17th-century truss, showing housing for a dovetail lap-jointed collar, is located by the hall stack. Other early features are likely concealed by later 19th and 20th-century plasterwork.