Beech Cottage

Beech Cottage is a house dating from around 1600, constructed of rubble and cob with some rendered sections. It features a straw-thatched roof with gable ends and a central lateral stack at the front, which has a tall rubble shaft heightened in brick. The layout consists of a three-room and through-passage plan. The lower end to the left was likely originally unheated. The hall has a lateral stack at the front, complete with an oven and a small single-storey integral bay. The inner room is unheated, separated from the hall by a full-height cob wall. The stack at the lower end is likely a 19th-century addition.

The exterior of the cottage is two storeys high with irregular fenestration, including 2- and 3-light 20th-century casements with glazing bars. There are two casements on the first floor, and the eaves rise undulatingly over them. A plank door is located to the left of the lateral stack, and there are pigeon holes on the first floor. There is also a single-storey outbuilding with a corrugated iron roof at the left end.

Inside, the hall features a ceiling cross beam that is chamfered with hollow-stepped stops, along with three similar axial beams in the inner room. The hall fireplace has been rebuilt in the 19th century and includes a simple wood chimneypiece with a bracketed mantle. The through-passage has been blocked by a straight flight staircase from the 19th century, and the lower room is featureless. The original roof includes a closed truss on the higher side of the through-passage, with trenched purlins, a morticed apex, a diagonal ridge, wide shallow rafters, and a morticed wall post. The full-height solid cob wall between the hall and inner room extends right up into the roof space. Beech Cottage is a notable example of a single-phase early 17th-century building.