Ivy Cottage, Formerly Known As Rose Cottage, North West Of Bremridge Farmhouse

Ivy Cottage, formerly known as Rose Cottage, stands north-west of Bremridge Farmhouse in Sandford. This is a house of considerable historical importance, probably dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, remodelled late in the 17th century, and further altered in the late 19th century.

The building is constructed of rendered cob on a stone rubble base with brick pitching and window surrounds. It is roofed with corrugated asbestos and has gable ends. A cob stack stands at the left end, now truncated, with a stone oven at its base.

The house follows a 3-room plan. The lower left room serves as the kitchen with a gable-end stack. The right-hand room, probably originally the hall, is unheated. The smaller central bay is partitioned axially, containing a small unheated room at the back and an entrance lobby at the front that gives access to all three rooms. A later doorway provides direct entry into the front of the lower left room. A floor was inserted into the hall later in the 17th century, probably when the lower gable-end stack was built.

Externally, the building is of two storeys with an asymmetrical three-window south-west front. The first-floor windows break the eaves line. Late 19th or early 20th-century 2-light casements with glazing bars are fitted throughout. Doorways at the centre and left of centre have late 19th-century plank doors; the left doorway is protected by a small late 19th-century gabled brick porch. At the rear, the higher left end of the back wall has partially collapsed. The rear elevation has circa late 19th-century casements on the ground floor at the centre, a small 17th-century chamfered wooden contour frame on the ground floor to the right, and a circa 18th-century 2-light window above. The lower north-west gable end displays a truncated cob stack with stone rubble oven at the base and a blocked window on the left. The higher south-east gable end is built into the back, blocking the ground-floor window, but has a late 19th-century casement on the first floor.

Internally, the lower left room contains a cambered deeply chamfered cross-beam with large straight-cut stops and a relatively small gable-end fireplace. The fireplace has a chamfered timber lintel with ogee stops on rebuilt brick gables and a clay oven. The higher right-hand room (hall) has a chamfered axial beam with run-out stops; the beam's end is set into a blocked gable-end window, indicating it is a later insertion. The partition between the entrance lobby and central unheated room, fitted with a timber grille above, is a late 19th-century replacement. The plank and muntin screen between the central bay and former hall is original, featuring chamfered muntins with mason's mitres and diagonal stops. It contains two doorways: one into the central unheated room and another with a chamfered arch into the entrance lobby. The plastered wattle-and-daub stud partition above is probably a 17th-century insertion into the only truss in the house.

This truss has side-pegged jointed crucks with the collar tenoned to the principals. The three-bay roof is complete and contains no other trusses. The diagonal ridge-piece and trenched purlins are supported on the gable-end walls and the solid wall partition between the lower left and central bays. The roof timbers over the higher right-hand end are smoke-blackened. Late 19th-century plank doors and a winder staircase occupy the lower left rear corner.

This is a very rare survival representing a transitional phase, combining the medieval open-hall arrangement with the 17th-century unheated central room arrangement.