Town Cottage

SS 81 SE TEMPLETON TEMPLETON

12/193 Town Cottage -

GV II

Former farmhouse. Circa early C16 origins, remodelled in the late C16 and early C17. Some C20 alterations. Whitewashed rendered cob and stone rubble; corrugated asbestos roof (formerly thatched), gabled at right end and brought down as a hip over an adjoining outbuildings at the left end; projecting left end stack to main block with bread oven, projecting rear lateral stack with bread oven. Plan: Present plan single depth, 3 rooms wide with an entrance passage containing the stair; 2 heated rooms to left of entrance, unheated room to right of entrance. The origins of the house are a late medieval open hall of 2 phases (medieval roof trusses at different heights). The date of the flooring of the house is not clear, timbers supporting the floor at the left end appear to be early C17 but a ground floor doorframe into the inner room could be earlier. The partitions of the 2 left hand rooms are said to be concrete block and the present wide entrance passage may have been slightly narrower originally. Single storage rooms at left and right ends are probably C18 or early C19 additions. Exterior: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical 3 window front to main block with a large C20 porch to right of centre with a wide front door; additional door at extreme right into store room with a glazed window above. First and ground floor windows left are C20 metal framed. C20 window to ground floor to right of porch; other fenestration of casement windows of the C18 or C19 with small panes; buttress on front to left of porch. Interior: The left hand room has a chamfered scroll-stopped crossbeam and exposed joists, C20 fireplace concealing earlier lintel. The room next right has a partially blocked fireplace, probably concealing earlier lintel and boxed in cross beams. Good chamfered doorframe to right hand room which has floor missing. Roof: Complex roof timbers. 1 sooted truss (probably a jointed cruck) survives at a lower level than the rest of the roof with the stub of a diagonally-set ridge. A later roof is carried above this truss, C18 with an X apex and C20 modifications when the thatch was removed. The studs of a partition project into the roofspace immediately to the left of this truss and are sooted on the left hand side only. Beyond the studs there are 2 bays of sooted roof timbers, the main truss also probably a jointed cruck with a diagonally-set ridge and rafters intact. Closely- spaced bird's-mouth beams between the front and rear purlins formerly carried a later plaster ceiling which has collapsed on top of the present ceiling.

Listing NGR: SS8870614033