Fordton Cottage

Fordton Cottage is a small gentry house dating back to the 1730s, which was remodelled in a Gothick style around the 1820s. The construction consists of brick, with a stuccoed front, roughcast on the rear, a thatched roof with gable ends, and brick stacks featuring banded brick shafts. The plan is double depth, comprising two rooms wide with a central entrance leading to a passage containing the staircase. A two-storey rear service lean-to extends to the rear, with a later back kitchen addition. A former stable, now incorporated into the house, adjoins the right end.

The front facade is symmetrical, with three bays and a central gable. The central entrance has a circa 1820s half-glazed door with a hoodmould and label stops. All windows are similarly treated with hoodmoulds and label stops. The ground floor features high-transomed French windows on either side, with glazing bars and margin panes, and smaller casements to the left and right, with a two-light casement with glazing bars in the centre. The gable has a blind lozenge-shaped window with a central quatrefoil and a V-shaped hoodmould with label stops. The former stable block to the right has a slate hipped roof and a dormer window. A blind lozenge is present in the left return gable, with a two-light high-transomed casement below, also featuring glazing bars and margin panes. The thatch extends as a catslide to the rear service lean-to.

The interior retains early 18th-century features such as several two-panel doors on the first floor, with HL hinges, and a timber first-floor chimney-piece. Later 19th-century joinery includes panelled doors on the ground floor and a plaster cornice, alongside a stick baluster staircase with mahogany newels, a ramped mahogany handrail. Photographs held by the owner show that the window embrasures on the front have been narrowed, with earlier window openings likely containing sashes. The Gothick remodelling may have been commissioned for Mr Thomas Pring, Clerk of the Peace for Devon, who purchased the house in 1829, and he was succeeded by Mr Francis Drake, a London lawyer born in the parish.