Tor Cottage Whitehall

Tor Cottage and Whitehall are two cottages, originally a single house, dating to the early 17th century. The house was subdivided in the 18th century, with further extensions added. Modernization occurred around 1970-80. The construction is primarily cob on rubble footings, with cob stacks topped with 20th-century brick. Thatched roofing covers Tor Cottage, while Whitehall has a slate-covered extension.

Tor Cottage, on the left (west) side, comprises two rooms with a service outshot at the left end. The stack now serves back-to-back fireplaces, demonstrating two phases of construction. The right-hand room was originally the end room of the 17th-century house, and a further room was added in the 18th century when the house was subdivided, along with a new fireplace. Whitehall, on the right (east) side, has an original two-room front block with a central axial stack serving back-to-back fireplaces, and an 18th-century extension set at right angles to the rear with its own end stack. Both cottages are two stories high. The front has a five-window arrangement, with two windows to Tor Cottage and three to Whitehall, all featuring 20th-century casements with glazing bars, though in an irregular arrangement. Tor Cottage has a 20th-century front door with a contemporary monopitch slate roofed porch, while Whitehall has a 19th-century part-glazed and panelled front door with a 20th-century monopitch tile roofed porch. The roof is gable-ended on the right and hipped on the left. The left end service outshot has a monopitch roof of corrugated iron. The rear block of Whitehall has a gable-ended roof.

Internally, three original fireplaces remain, constructed of stone rubble with soffit-chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintels. Tor Cottage’s fireplace includes a cloam oven. The 17th-century ceiling structure in Tor Cottage has been replaced, and the roof, a single bay between cob crosswalls, is inaccessible but is likely original. In Whitehall, both main rooms retain original crossbeams of large scantling, soffit-chamfered with truncated pyramid stops. The right-end room has an inserted or relined oven with a winder stair rising over it. Each first-floor room has a two-bay roof, each supported by an A-frame truss with pegged dovetail-shaped lap-jointed collars. The principals are mortised and pegged onto vertical posts set into the cob side walls, forming a devolved jointed cruck construction. The Whitehall extension has a roughly-chamfered axial beam and a similarly finished oak lintel to the fireplace, and a roof carried on an 18th-century A-frame truss with pegged lap-jointed collar and X-apex.