Town Tenement And Yew Cottage

This is a farmhouse, now divided into two dwellings, likely built in the 15th or early 16th century. It was extended in the 17th and 19th centuries. The construction is of whitewashed rendered cob and rubble with a cement-slurried slate roof, with gable ends. There are lateral hall stacks to the rear, heightened in brick, and a stack at the gable end of the rear dairy. An axial stack originally stood at the service end.

The original layout was a three-room, through-passage open hall plan. The roof pitch was raised at the upper end in the 16th century, but the building remained single-storied until the 17th century, possibly around 1624 (as indicated by a datestone above a fireplace). Floors were then inserted, and a staircase added in the through-passage. A right-angled dairy extension to the rear of the service end is also likely from the 17th century. The lower end was extended in the 19th century, creating an overall T-shaped plan.

The building has two storeys and a six-window front with horned sashes, featuring marginal glazing bars on the first floor. A door is at the left end, with two late 18th or early 19th century, three-light casements (six panes per light) on either side of the cross-passage doorway, now with a 20th-century door.

Inside, there are chamfered beams in the parlour and chamfered hall fireplace lintels. The hall window has panelled shutters. The lower-end fireplace has a scroll-stopped chamfered lintel with the datestone "1624" above. A cast ironwork fireback is dated 1662 and initialled "C.P." There are two bread oven openings. An ancient settle, locally known as the “Bishops Chair,” is to the right of the hearth. The kitchen window has been reduced in width. An 18th-century door with two large panels leads from the head of the stairs to Yew Cottage.

The roof structure is of particular interest, exhibiting two levels of smoke-blackening and a sequence of four trusses. A raised cruck truss is at one end of the through-passage, while the truss over the lower end has been replaced. The roof features smoke-blackened, threaded purlins, a diagonally threaded ridge purlin, and cranked collars morticed into blade soffits. The foot of the rear side blade has been truncated due to rear additions. A clean truss directly above this considerably heightens the ridge, matching the level of the third truss over the hall which is also heavily smoke-blackened with threaded purlins. A later, clean truss over the upper end is likely 18th-century, with a side-pegged collar, but smoke-blackened rafters extend to the gable end. Later patching and additions to the trusses have further raised the roof level. The ceiling to the chamber over the hall has been dropped, concealing some 17th-century plasterwork cornice within the roof space.