Porch Cottage

House. Dating from the early to mid-17th century, it may have an earlier core. The house is constructed of plastered cob on rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick, and has a thatched roof. Originally a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing north, with an inner room at the right (west) end, it features a rear lateral stack to the hall and an end stack to the service end room. A two-storey porch with an outshot to the left is a prominent feature.

The front of the house, to the right of the porch, has two windows. The ground floor windows are 19th-century casements with glazing bars, the right-hand window having external glazing or security bars. The first floor windows retain original oak frames with chamfered reveals, although the central mullions are missing. The slate-roofed outshot to the left of the porch has a late 19th to early 20th-century casement with glazing bars. The porch has a gabled roof and is original and largely intact. The outer oak arch of the porch has a fillet-ogee moulded surround with worn urn stops, and there are benches on either side. The original front doorway has an oak frame with chamfered and scroll-stopped surrounds, leading to an old plank door. A late 19th to early 20th-century casement replaces the original window in the first floor porch, but the projecting sill on shaped oak brackets remains from the original small oriel window and is of 17th-century origin. The bargeboards under the gable are original, enriched with two rows of shallow modillions, and an open pendant at the apex. The main roof is gable-ended.

The interior is largely original, with no passage-service end screen. The service end room has soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeams. The fireplace here has been largely rebuilt with a cambered oak lintel. The hall also features soffit-chamfered crossbeams with bar-scroll stops, and a rebuilt fireplace. At the upper end of the hall is an oak plank-and-muntin screen, the muntins chamfered with scroll stops over bench level. All interior features are consistently of early to mid-17th-century date. While the first floor and roof were not inspected, the late medieval plan-form suggests the possibility of earlier features. The house is a well-preserved and little-modernized early to mid-17th-century house with superior carpentry detail.