Rosemont Cottages

Rosemont Cottages are a pair of cottages with a core dating back to the 16th century. They have undergone significant alterations both internally and externally during the 19th and 20th centuries. The exterior is a mix of roughcast and colourwashed stone rubble, covered by slate and asbestos slate roofs. There is a brick stack on the left gable, a tall stack rising from the ridge in the centre of the front, and two further brick stacks to the right.

The building originated as an open hall house, with the lower room initially separated from the hall by a full-height partition, traces of which remain in the roof structure. In the 17th century, the building was floored and divided into four rooms on the ground floor, with axial stacks providing heating – two rooms sharing a single stack and back-to-back hearths, and the other two rooms with separate axial stacks. This division likely created the two separate dwellings. Two passages were added, one at the upper end and one in the conventional position between the hall and lower end.

The cottages are two storeys high, with an asymmetrical facade featuring a 2:1:1 window arrangement. The windows are 19th century, with 1-, 2- and 3-light casements containing small panes and close-set glazing bars. Gablets with small glazed windows are above some of the first-floor windows. Two doorways are centrally located; the left one is recessed and approached by three steps with a panelled plank door. To the right is a 20th-century projecting porch made of stone rubble with a slated gabled roof, two stone steps, and iron handrails.

Inside, little of the original fabric remains. A ground-floor fireplace on the right has small scroll stops on the wooden bressumer. Modern staircases and joinery have been installed. The roof contains two cruck trusses, showing smoke-blackening, diagonal ridge-pieces, morticed cranked collars, and butt purlins. A closed truss on the west side has a likely inserted cob wall running up to the ridge, originally dividing the hall from the lower room. The roof has seen some 19th-century alterations, particularly over the west end.