Hoopers Cottage

Hoopers Cottage is a house dating to around 1600, with extensions added around 1935 and again around 1972. It is constructed of unrendered stone rubble with cob to the upper storey, under a thatched roof hipped at the left end and gabled to the right. The building stands two storeys high in a five-window range, with the left-hand front corner splayed.

The original range at the right end displays an interesting and unusual plan comprising two rooms with a lobby entry. The hall features a front lateral stack to the right with an integral stair turret beside it to the left. To the lower left end of the front of the hall is the entrance into a lobby, with an axial screen creating a small second room to the rear of the lobby, accessible via the hall. The tall front lateral stack is of stone rubble with drip and tapered cap. A second stack in 20th-century stone rubble but in 17th-century style with tapered cap is set just off the ridge towards the left end.

The earlier 20th-century extension to the left lower end of the original range added two rooms and a further staircase, with an additional short bay added around 1972, all in a similar style to the original range. The 20th-century range has two- and three-light casements with eight panes per light.

The older core retains significant original fenestration. A small 17th-century square timber window with central glazing bar and surviving pintles for an internal shutter sits above a tiled canopy to a chamfered Tudor-arched door surround, which features an old framed and ledged three-plank door with original lock. To its right, the stair turret breaks forward in line with the stack and has a small timber mullion window of two ogee-headed lights behind a single glass pane. A timber cavetto mullion window of four lights sits above a three-light timber mullion window with diamond leaded panes to the right of the stack.

The interior preserves a rich survival of original features to the older range. The hall contains an axial hollow step stopped chamfered beam and bressumer to the front wall above a cavetto moulded fireplace lintel. Two adjoining low oblong recesses in the west wall with timber cupboard door surrounds are thought possibly to be bible cupboards. Three Tudor-arched door surrounds provide access to the stair turret, to the lobby, and to a small room off the hall (now blocked off), the turret door being an old plank door. A plank and muntin screen faces the lobby entrance, five panels wide with chamfered muntins and top rail. The lobby retains its flagstone floor. The winder stair preserves its original wooden treads with a cased-in original door surround with pintles to the principal chamber at its head.

A partition with wide timber studs separates the two chambers. A remarkable survival is the double garderobe in a small integral projection to the rear, a timber two-seater formerly accessed from both chambers by doorways on either side of the partition—that to the left retains its old ledged plank door with original hinges; that to the right is now blocked. The principal chamber is heated by the hall stack, though the lintel is a 20th-century replacement.

The roof structure shows that the left end of the 17th-century range was originally also hipped, displaying good quality carpentry with two trusses with short curved feet, carrying two tiers of threaded purlins and ridge purlin with cranked collars morticed and tenoned into the soffits of the blades. The truss over the dividing wall between the two chambers is closed to collar height. There is no sign of smoke blackening in the roof. Despite the later additions, this is a single-phase house of exceptional importance, remaining remarkably intact with very complete internal features. Its unusual plan is of exceptional interest.