Church Cottage

Church Cottage is a former church house, now a private dwelling, dating to the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It is constructed of rendered stone rubble, with the rear remaining unrendered, and has a slate roof with gable ends. A brick stack is located at the left gable, and a rear lateral stack of stone rubble with a brick shaft, offsets, and a projecting bread oven is also present.

The original plan consisted of a single room deep, with four rooms in a line, offering direct entry into the larger, heated rooms at each end. A staircase was originally located to the rear of the two narrower middle rooms. Later 19th and 20th-century alterations have obscured the original layout. Surviving head beams from 2-plank and muntin screens suggest a wide former cross-passage towards the upper end, with a probable parlour to the left and a larger hall to the right, heated by the rear lateral stack. These headbeams are unrelated to the current partitions, the screens likely removed in the 18th or 19th centuries when the house was divided into two separate dwellings. The parlour was expanded, and the hall shortened to create two small middle rooms, no wider than a passage, which presumably served as sculleries. The original staircase to the left-hand cottage has been removed, replaced by a more recent staircase with two flights at the rear of the right-hand middle room.

The cottage is two storeys high, with a four-window front. All windows are two-light casements with six panes per light, except for a 20th-century ground floor window to the right of a 20th-century gabled conservatory porch, which has a plank inner door. A 20th-century door provides direct entry into the left-hand room, and a further lean-to addition is located at the right end.

The parlour contains a single chamfered cross ceiling beam, while the hall features two similar beams, all with keel stops. The fireplace associated with the lateral hall stack is concealed. Headrails remain of the 2-plank and muntin screens to the parlour and left-hand middle room, the parlour screen supported at the rear on a jowled bracket or possibly concealed post. Otherwise, 19th-century joinery is largely intact. The roof comprises four trusses with straight principals, two tiers of butt purlins, and formerly morticed and tenoned collars. There is no evidence of smoke-blackening.

Historically, the cottage has served as a church house, parish poor houses (until 1837), farm cottages, and now a private dwelling. It backs onto Warkleigh Churchyard.