Tavy Cottage

Tavy Cottage is a house, likely dating from the early 16th century, with alterations in the 17th and late 17th to early 18th centuries. It was originally part of a larger dwelling. The construction is of plastered cob on rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick, and a thatched roof. The original layout was a two-room plan with a central passage facing north, featuring an axial stack within a party wall to the east and an end stack to the west. It is believed to occupy the hall and inner room of an earlier passage and service room, now separated as Godfrey’s Cottage.

The house has two storeys with an irregular front elevation featuring three ground floor windows and two first floor windows. These are 20th-century casements with rectangular panes of leaded glass, complemented by 20th-century external shutters. A 20th-century four-panel door is positioned to the right of centre. The roof is gable-ended on the right side and continuous with the adjoining Godfrey’s Cottage on the left.

The interior retains notable historical features. The through passage probably resulted from 17th or 18th-century subdivision of the original 16th-century house. The hall on the left side is distinguished by a full-height cob crosswall. The hall contains the original early 16th-century roof structure, comprising two bays with a side-pegged jointed cruck truss and small curving windbraces to the purlins. The roof is smoke-blackened, suggesting the original hall was open to the roof and served by an open hearth fire. The roof over a putative inner room is inaccessible. A rubble fireplace with a plain oak lintel, likely dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, is present in the hall. The floor was laid in the early to mid-17th century with a chamfered and scroll-stopped crossbeam. A newel stair alcove to the right of the fireplace was rebuilt in the 19th century, but still contains a late 17th to early 18th-century plank door with an applied two-panel front and strap hinges. A small 18th-century cupboard is set within the front wall, featuring a panelled door on H-hinges, with the panel now glazed. In the right-hand room, one early 17th-century axial beam remains, chamfered with one surviving late step stop. The fireplace in this room is blocked.