East Holme East Holme Cottage

East Holme Cottage is a former farmhouse that dates back to the 15th century, with improvements made in the 16th and 17th centuries. It is constructed of plastered cob on a rubble plinth, with brick and volcanic trap stacks, and features a thatched roof. The building is long and follows a three-room and through passage plan, with later extensions added to the rear. It now stands two storeys high.

The north front faces the farmyard and has a large projecting lateral stack made of dressed volcanic stone, which serves the hall. There is a secondary lateral stack to the left and gable-end stacks. The main entrance, which is from the 19th century, leads into the inner room on the right. The building has six 19th and 20th-century casement windows on each floor, although they vary in size and spacing. The door to the cottage is located on the extreme left.

The structure is complex and multi-period, featuring a good original roof supported by side-pegged jointed crucks, with two bays over the hall and two bays over the service areas. The roof includes chamfered arch-bracing on simple false corbels and single windbraces. Framed closed trusses are present over post-and-panel screens at each end of the hall, and there are traces of a buried hall-passage screen. Both roofs show signs of smoke blackening from separate open hearth fires.

Inside, there is a large inserted 16th-century stone fireplace with an oak lintel and moulded surround, along with late 16th to early 17th-century stopped beams in the hall. Identical chamfered beams are found across the large inner room or parlour, which now includes the 19th-century entrance hall. A gable fireplace, rebuilt in the 20th century, features an ovolo-moulded oak lintel. The chamber roof is secondary, and a 16th to 17th-century gabled stair-turret projects to the rear of the parlour, containing a 19th-century stick-baluster stair.

The service end, which is now mostly East Holme Cottage, was first extended in the 16th century, and remnants of a contemporary closed truss can be seen in the roof space. This end was rebuilt in the 20th century, complete with a new end roof and a brick kitchen stack on the gable. Many early features remain concealed within the structure.