Locks Cottage

Locks Cottage is a mid-16th century cottage, originally part of a larger farmhouse. It was reduced in size probably in the 18th century and modernized around 1980. The walls are of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with a stone rubble stack topped with 20th-century brick and a thatched roof, with slate to a 20th-century outshot.

The original plan was for a three-room-and-through-passage house facing north-north-west, built down a hillslope. A small, unheated room adjoins No.1 Locks Cottages to the west. The hall has an axial stack that now serves as an end stack, as the passage and service room have been demolished. The original house was an open hall house, and its roof structure suggests the hall fireplace was a key feature. A bedchamber juts into the hall, and the hall was likely floored over in the early 17th century. The demolition of the passage and service end room occurred in the 18th century. Around 1980, a service outshot was added to the rear of the hall.

The main house now stands two storeys high. The exterior has an irregular two-window front with 20th-century casements containing glazing bars. A 17th-century oak window with chamfered mullions was discovered during renovations and is now stored by the owner. The roof is gable-ended on the left side and runs continuously over No.1 Locks Cottages on the right. The main door is in the left end wall and has a 20th-century door.

Inside, the partition between the hall and inner room is oak-framed, though mostly now plastered over. The inner room features a half beam with a deep soffit-chamfer across the end wall. Joists oversail the partition, and their rounded ends are visible in the hall, showing evidence of the internal jetty. The hall has a later crossbeam with deep soffit-chamfers, and the oak lintel of the large original fireplace shares a similar finish. The roof contains an original hip cruck at the inner room end, and a closed truss sits between the chambers over the former hall and inner room. Locks Cottage is part of a group of attractive, listed buildings forming the hamlet.