Lownard Cottage

Lownard Cottage

A house dating from the 15th century, remodelled in the 17th and 18th centuries, and extended in the 20th century. The building is constructed of whitewashed stone rubble and cob, with a thatched roof featuring a gable end to the right with a projecting gable end stack, and a half-hipped end to the left. A rear lateral stack with a heightened rendered shaft is also present. The thatch at the eaves is swept over the first floor windows.

The original plan is uncertain but probably consisted of two rooms: a large two-bay hall to the left and a smaller one-bay lower end room to the right. At least the right-hand bay of the hall was originally open to the roof. The higher left-hand bay may always have had a first floor chamber (solar), as the first floor partition appears integral with the truss and shows no evidence of a partition below to form an inner room. The lower right end may also have been open to the roof originally, with a gable end stack and floor inserted in the 17th century, certainly before the lower end of the hall was floored, possibly as late as the 18th century. The lateral stack at the back of the hall was built when the hall was floored, though the precise date is uncertain as the fireplace is blocked and its lintel concealed. A passage may have existed between the hall and the lower room, though the partition on the lower side has been removed. Opposing front and rear doorways are present; however the 15th-century rear doorframe is chamfered on the inside only, which, if in situ, suggests it led to a stair turret—unlikely given that the doorframe is 15th-century and the lower end was not floored until the 17th century. The present staircase is situated behind the hall stack within a larger 20th-century outshut. An earlier lean-to at the lower end of the house now contains the kitchen.

The exterior presents two storeys in an asymmetrical but regular three-window front. Windows consist of 19th and 20th-century two and three-light casements, some probably in old frames, with timber lintels. A blocked doorway to the left of the front is probably originally a window, with a raking masonry buttress to its right. The doorway to the right of centre features a heavy chamfered lintel and probably an early 19th-century plank door with wrought iron hinges, beneath a lean-to scantle slated canopy on wooden cantilevers. The higher left-hand end wall contains a 15th-century first floor wooden window with ogee trefoil-headed lights: two lights above the transom and four lights below with intermediate mullions, all chamfered and not rebated for glass, set in an opening with a heavy chamfered timber lintel with run-out stops. To its left in the end wall is also a small two-light 18th-century window. A single storey lean-to with a slate roof stands on the right-hand lower gable end. Twentieth-century lean-to outshuts are present at the rear.

The interior features a three-bay roof with two raised cruck trusses with slightly cambered and morticed collars, a diagonal ridge piece, threaded purlins, and a hip cruck at the lower right end on a wooden pad. The closed truss at the higher left end possibly has an original timber frame partition on the first storey supported on a heavy roughly chamfered, non-stopped ceiling beam which appears never to have had a partition below. Very large unchamfered joists support the first floor chamber over the higher end of the hall. The lower end of the hall has inserted rough joists, while the lower end room has chamfered ceiling beams. The lower end fireplace has a 20th-century wooden lintel, and the hall's rear lateral fireplace is blocked with a 20th-century chimneypiece. A rear doorway opposite the front doorway features a probably 15th-century heavy wooden pointed arch doorframe, chamfered on the inside only. On the first floor are some 18th-century two-panel doors. A former list description mentioned a plaster shield of arms inside the building.