Porch Cottage

SS 70 SE 3/130 26.8.65

COLEBROOKE COPPLESTONE Porch Cottage (formerly listed as Porch House)

GV II*

House. Early-mid C17, possibly earlier core. Plastered cob on rubble footings; stone rubble stacks topped with C20 brick; thatch roof. 3-room-and-through-passage plan house facing north with inner room at right (west) end. Hall has rear lateral stack and service end room has end stack. 2-storey porch with outshot alongside to left. 2 storeys. 2-window front to right of porch. C19 casements with glazing bars on ground floor, that to right with external glazing or security bars. Both first floor windows have original oak frames with chamfered reveals but central mullions are missing. Slate-roofed outshot to left of porch has late C19-early C20 casement with glazing bars. Porch has gabled roof. It is original and largely intact. Outer oak arch has a fillet-ogee moulded surround with very worn but recognisable urn stops. There are benches either side. Original front doorway has oak frame with chamfered and scroll-stopped surround and contains an old plank door. First floor porch window is a late C19-early C20 casement but projecting sill on shaped oak brackets is C17 and remains from original small oriel window there. The bargeboards under the gable are also original and are enriched with 2 rows of shallow modillions and at apex is an open pendant. Porch has many parallels with contemporary porch at nearby Chaffcombe Farmhouse, Down St Mary (q.v.). Main roof is gable-ended. Good interior: there is no passage-service end screen and probably never was. Service end roan has soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeam. Fireplace largely rebuilt with cambered oak lintel. Hall has soffit-chamfered crossbeams with bar-scroll stops and here too the fireplace has been rebuilt. Upper end of hall has an oak plank-and-muntin screen, its muntins chamfered with scroll stops over bench level. All the features are consistently early-mid C17 in date. The first floor and roof were not available for inspection at the time of survey but the late medieval plan-form may indicate that earlier features might survive. Even so this is a well-preserved and little modernised early-mid C17 house with sane superior carpentry detail.

Listing NGR: SS7710702582