Culm Cottage The Bridge

Culm Cottage and The Bridge are two adjoining cottages in Culmstock, one of which includes a shop. They were formerly a single house, originally built in the late 16th or early 17th century, possibly with earlier components. The building received some improvements in the 17th century and was thoroughly refurbished in the mid 19th century when the original house was divided into its present two separate dwellings.

The structure is built of plastered cob on stone rubble footings. The chimneys are of stone rubble or cob, topped with 19th and 20th century brick. The roof is thatched, with a slate extension to Culm Cottage.

The building forms an L-shaped plan with two adjoining cottages. The main block faces north-east, running parallel to the street but set back from it. A block projects forward at right angles to the street front at its north-west end.

Culm Cottage occupies the centre and left end of the main block. It follows a 2-room plan with a central entrance hall containing the stair. The small unheated inner left room is now used as the kitchen. The larger right room has an axial chimney stack backing onto the adjoining cottage. A 1-room extension from the mid 19th century extends to the rear of the left end, with an outer lateral stack. The Bridge is a 3-room cottage occupying the right end room of the main block, which has an end stack, plus the two unheated rooms of the front block. The entrance to The Bridge is through the shop in the front room of the front block.

The main block was originally built as a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house. The larger heated room in Culm Cottage appears to be the original hall, which was probably open to the roof in the late 16th or early 17th century. It was floored over in the early or mid 17th century. The entrance hall and stairs were inserted in the mid 19th century into the former inner room. The main block room of The Bridge now occupies the site of the former passage and service end room. The date of the front block is not known but is thought to predate the mid 19th century.

Both cottages are two storeys. The main block features an irregular 3-window front of mid 19th century casements with glazing bars and margin panes. The first floor windows have flat thatch eyebrows above them. The left 2-window section, belonging to Culm Cottage, is symmetrical about the central doorway, which contains a 19th century panelled door behind a 20th century gabled porch. The main block roof is half-hipped to the left and hipped to the right. The rear extension of Culm Cottage contains horned 4-pane sashes. The front block contains 19th and early 20th century casements with glazing bars, including the shop window to the front end. The front block roof is half-hipped at the front.

At the time of survey, only Culm Cottage was available for inspection. Although the interior appears largely to result from the mid 19th century refurbishment, the original layout is preserved, and late 16th to early 17th century carpentry detail is suspected behind the 19th century plaster. In the former hall, the fireplace is blocked. Both rooms have unstopped beams with soffit-chamfers—an axial one crossing the left room and entrance hall, and a crossbeam in the former hall. The roof over this part is carried on two side-pegged jointed cruck trusses with cambered collars. The roofspace is inaccessible, making it impossible to determine whether the roof timbers are smoke-blackened from an open hearth fire and thus late medieval in date. The main block section of The Bridge probably contains similar carpentry detail.

These cottages form part of an attractive group of listed buildings in the vicinity of Culmstock Bridge and have undergone no modernisations since the mid 19th century.