Hazel Cottage And Raddon Cottage

Hazel Cottage and Raddon Cottage are two adjoining cottages, originally a farmhouse, dating to around the middle to late 17th century. The construction is a mix of whitewashed rendered cob and stone rubble, with a thatched roof. The left end of the main range has a hipped roof, the right end is half-hipped, and the wing has a gable. A projecting lateral stack is built from volcanic stone with a stone shaft, partially dismantled, and there’s a projecting end stack to the wing. A rectangular, projecting bread oven is attached to the lateral stack.

The original layout is somewhat unclear, with the main range (Raddon Cottage) running east to west and a north-south wing (Hazel Cottage) attached at the west end. The early core of the main range was likely a single depth, originally containing a heated room on the left (possibly a 17th-century hall) and a narrower, unheated service room on the right. The ground floor now forms a single room with an entrance on the right; a blocked doorway to the left of the stack may have been the original entrance. The north-south wing features a heated room at the south end and an unheated, formerly windowless room at the north end, both under the east-west roofline. A 20th-century single-storey addition extends from the rear of the main range.

The exterior presents an asymmetrical facade with one and two window bays. Raddon Cottage has a 20th-century front door with a gabled porch canopy at the extreme right, and a 2-light casement window above. A section of the front elevation is slightly set back, featuring a 3-light ground floor casement in a 17th-century chamfered oak frame with chamfered mullions. The stack has horizontal set-offs, and the thatched bread oven projects outwards. The south end of the wing (Hazel Cottage) has a rounded rendered stack with slate drip ledges and casement windows on both the ground and first floors. The left return has two entrances, one leading into the northernmost room which is slightly set back, and another into a narrow passage. Later 18th-century sliding sash windows with glazing bars are present, alongside more recent casements.

Inside Raddon Cottage, there are two chamfered cross beams; one features a stop-chamfered spine beam with run-out stops. A fireplace has ovolo-moulded volcanic stone jambs and a lintel, although the lintel doesn't match the jambs' width. Hazel Cottage has a scoll-stopped cross beam in the heated room. A modern grate may conceal earlier features. The roof trusses of Hazel Cottage are pegged collar rafter with x apexes. The west-east range trusses are similar, but redundant rafters suggest the north-south wing might be a later addition. The building was formerly known as Way Farm. A lease dating to 1680 mentions a “Sopeboiler” (soap boiler) paying rent for the property. This is an attractive thatched building located on a prominent roadside site in Raddon.