Hensleigh Cottage

Hensleigh Cottage is an estate house, possibly originally built as a dower house, dating from the early to mid 18th century with remodeling in the early to mid 19th century. The exterior is finished in incised stucco and render, topped by a dry slate hipped roof, with rendered stacks featuring four old square clay pots on each, two lateral at the rear and one axial to the rear wing.

The original plan comprised two rooms at the front, flanking a central entrance leading to a stair hall within a rear wing set at right angles, with a rear outshut to the right. A further room was added to the rear of this in the mid 19th century, followed by a smaller wing at a right angle, likely in the later 19th century. A 20th-century conservatory now sits opposite this wing, to the left of the main facade.

The symmetrical, two-story front has a five-window arrangement. Late 19th-century four-pane hornless sash windows are set flush with the wall surface within moulded architraves. The central doorway retains its original doorcase, featuring Tuscan pilasters and an open pediment above a cobweb fanlight and fielded panelled door. A 19th-century Tuscan porch, constructed with muntin and plank sides, stands before the doorway. A late 19th-century canted bay is present on the left-hand return. The wing to the left of the bay has a four-window range with a mix of early and mid 19th-century twelve-pane sashes, some with small horns. Further early and mid 19th-century sashes and casements light the rear outshut and the right-hand wall of the wing. An original fielded panel door is located in the wing near the angle.

Inside, the original panelled room on the right features fielded panels, a moulded cornice, doorcases, panelled doors, an elliptical-arched niche, and a chimneypiece. An original oak dog-leg staircase has turned balusters, a ramped handrail, and panelled newels. Additional 19th-century features include panelled window shutters with inner beads and moulded plaster ceiling cornices, along with panelled shutters. A bay window in the front left-hand room has vertically-sliding shutters. A mid to late 19th-century service stair has stick balusters.

Hensleigh Cottage is notable for its 18th-century panelled room and staircase and for the unusual feature of its windows being flush with the wall surface, a relatively rare survival of 17th and early 18th-century practice.