7 And 8, South Street

Nos. 7 and 8, South Street are a pair of cottages and a workshop, originally a house dating to the late 16th to early 17th century, with a possible earlier core. The house was divided into two cottages, apparently in the 19th century, and No. 7 has a 20th-century service extension. The rear wall is cob on stone rubble footings, while the front wall is stone rubble; stone rubble stacks are topped with 19th and 20th-century brick, with a plastered chimneyshaft at the service end of No. 7. The roofs are asbestos slate on No. 7 and corrugated iron on No. 8, having formerly been thatched.

The original plan was of a three-room-and-through-passage house facing southwest. No. 7 occupies the right (southeast) end and has a two-room plan, with a former passage now a small, unheated, blocked room, and a former service end kitchen with a gable-end stack. A 20th-century service extension is at the rear of the service end kitchen. No. 8 is a two-room workshop, formerly a cottage and previously the hall and a small inner room of the original house. The hall has a projecting rear lateral stack. The house appears to have been floored throughout from its construction, resulting in both cottages being two storeys in height.

The exterior features an irregular four-window front with 19th and 20th-century casements, with the oldest windows on No. 8. No. 7 has a roughly central doorway with a 20th-century door and gabled porch; the original passage doorway is blocked by a window. No. 8 also has a roughly central doorway containing a 19th-century plank door, inserted into the former hall. The roof is gable-ended, stepping down slightly from No. 8 to No. 7.

Inside No. 7, the service end kitchen has a stone rubble fireplace with a replacement oak lintel. A crossbeam here exhibits deep soffit-chamfers with run-out stops. The former passage, now a small unheated room, has an upper oak plank-and-muntin screen blocking a former doorway. In No. 8, the former hall has axial beams with deep soffit chamfers and roll stops. An oak plank-and-muntin screen separates the hall from the narrow unheated inner room. The building retains an interesting roof structure with straight principals onto the front stone wall and side-pegged jointed crucks into the rear cob wall. The roofspace was not inspected, but it is not thought to show signs of smoke damage. Nos. 7 and 8 South Street are part of a group of listed buildings in the attractive village of Holcombe Rogus.