Rose Cottage

SS 90 NW 5/15

BICKLEIGH BELL HILL Rose Cottage

GV II Cottage. Two different building phases; the left hand end C17, remodelled in the 1940s, the right hand end probably C18 in origin, C20 rear additions. Whitewashed plastered cob and stone; thatched roof of two different heights with plain ridges, lower at the left end and half-hipped at the left end of the range and at the left end of the taller ridge; projecting left end stack,rear lateral stack, right end stack all with brick shafts.

Plan: raised above the road and sited on a hill,the floor level of the right hand end considerably higher than the left hand end. Complex evolution. C17 carpentry in the left end suggests that Rose Cottage may have originated as a C17 house, later converted into two or three small cottages. At one time the right hand end of the building was clearly one property with the left hand end of Hillside (q.v.) adjoining at the right.

The present plan is three rooms wide, originally single depth, the middle room was heated from the rear lateral stack, the flanking rooms from the end stacks. The lateral stack has been blocked by a stair against the rear wall; the cross wall between the left hand and middle room has been removed and there is no internal access between the right hand room and middle room on the ground floor. C20 single storey rear additions. Two storeys. Asymmetrical 2:1 window front, the right hand end with a higher ridge, the left hand end approximately symmetrical with the eaves thatch slightly eyebrowed over the two first floor windows; a C20 two-leaf central glazed front door; two ground floor two-light windows with two vertical panes per light and two first floor two-light windows glazed with C20 diamond leaded panes. The right hand end of the range has one first floor and one ground floor C20 two-light casements and stone steps up to a C20 glazed front door at the right.

The left return of the range, conspicuous from the hill has the thatch carried down over the top of the chimney breast with the shaft projecting through the thatch; one ground floor two-light casement with two vertical panes per light and one first floor two-light casement, three panes per light.

Interior: the left hand room has a deeply-chamfered scroll-stopped cross beam and a similar half-beam at the left end, C20 fireplace. Straight principal rafters visible upstairs suggest that the roof may have been replaced in the C18 or later.

Group value with Hillside (q.v.) and part of an attractive thatched group on the road to the village centre.

Listing NGR: SS9401607246