Silks Silks Cottage

Silks Silks Cottage is a former farmhouse, later divided into two cottages, dating from the early 16th century with extensions in the 18th century. The walls are of plastered cob on stone footings, with cob or stone chimney stacks topped with 19th-century brick and a thatched roof. Originally, the house was planned with three rooms and a through passage, running along the road, with an additional room at the north-west end. An 18th-century extension forms the bulk of the second cottage, Silks Cottage (No. 2). Later plasterwork, wallpaper, partitions, and subdivision throughout obscure much of the original layout. The building is now two storeys high. The front has six windows, with an irregular arrangement of openings. Silks Cottage retains 19th-century and 20th-century casement windows, most with glazing bars, while No. 2, Silks Cottage has all 1983 casements. A large, projecting lateral chimney stack is positioned to the right of the front door. A large recess on the first floor to the right of the stack suggests the former location of a two-storey porch that projected into the road, obscuring a now-blocked main entrance. The hall has a smoke-blackened roof supported by side-pegged-jointed crucks, with some original framing visible in the roofspace. The hall also features 16th-century moulded and stopped beams. A cob-walled outshot is situated behind the hall. The early fabric is largely hidden, particularly within Silks Cottage. The left front corner and stack were rebuilt around 1930, and No. 2, Silks Cottage was renovated and enlarged in 1983.