Pollys Cottage West Stowford Cottage

This is a farmhouse, originally built in the early 16th century, that was later divided into three cottages and converted around 1970 into two separate occupancies. It has been remodelled and extended during the 17th and 18th or 19th centuries. The building is constructed of whitewashed rendered stone and cob, with a thatched roof. Several tall stacks are present; one is rubble with a drip, tapered cap and a brick extension to the rear of the hall, another is lateral brick to the rear left end, and a third is truncated rubble at the rear right-hand corner.

The original fabric is concentrated on the right-hand end, which includes a hall and an inner room formerly open to the roof, with a staircase inserted later. The left end, likely rebuilt and enlarged in the 17th century, was comprised of two small two-room cottages until around 1970 and is now a single occupation. The front elevation is two storeys and has a seven-window range. The left side features three two-light casements with two panes per light, a three-light window above five two-light casements, with the second from the left replacing a former doorway. The right side has three 19th-century three-light casements with six panes per light. There is 20th-century ground-floor fenestration.

A 16th-century four-centred arched timber door surround with an old ledged four-plank door and cover strips is present. The interior has been largely altered on the left side. An inspection of the roof space suggested a mainly 17th-century roof structure with lap-jointed collars to straight principal rafters, two tiers of purlins, a ridge purlin and common rafters. The early features are concentrated in the right half. The hall shows potential evidence of a jetty, with a plain chamfered beam at the cross-passage end and 17th-century ovolo-moulded bressumers along the side and at the inner end of the hall, featuring scratch crosses to the scroll-stops. A four-centred arched door surround is present between the hall and the inner room, with a chamfered surround and a ledged three-plank door. A reset and largely renewed door surround with a four-plank door is in the inner room with a cranked head. A five-light diamond timber mullion window opening has been infilled on its outer face; it was originally part of the structure. A solid cob wall rises to the apex of the roof, dividing the two occupancies at the lower end of the cross-passage. Two raised cruck trusses are over the hall and hall/inner room, with two tiers of threaded purlins and ridge purlins. The collars are tenoned into soffit mortices on the blades. Both trusses are closed, and smoke-blackening is visible on all timbers of the roof structure, including common rafters and thatch, extending the whole length of the hall and inner room, with the blackening lessening over the latter. Rendering on the hall side infill to the truss at the lower end is significantly smoke-blackened above the internal jetty, and some slight smoke-blackening is on the hall side of the infill to the hall/inner room truss.