Laburnum Cottage

Laburnum Cottage is a cottage dating from approximately the late 15th or early 16th century, with remodelling in the 17th century and extensions built around the 19th century and late 20th century. The walls are stone rubble, finished with roughcast and painted externally. The roof is covered in asbestos tiles, half-hipped at the right end and gabled at the left end. A rear stack is not visible externally.

The cottage is set at a right angle, featuring a rear lateral stack and a front doorway positioned towards the right end. A small room has been partitioned off in the lower right corner. It’s likely part of a larger house that originally extended further left and possibly right, although the ground rises steeply to the left. A portion of the original house was likely truncated when a side stack was built at the rear; and a narrow outbuilding was added behind the left end gable in the 19th century. This was raised in the late 20th century and integrated into the living space, with a single-story extension added to the front in the late 20th century.

The east front is asymmetrical, with two windows on the first floor, dating from the late 19th or early 20th century, each with two lights and glazing bars. The ground floor features a 20th-century 2-light casement to the left and a 20th-century glazed door with a gabled canopy on brackets to the right. A weathered dripcourse runs above the left-hand ground floor window. The right end of the front is slightly recessed, with a higher ground level towards the left leading to a wing that has a large 20th-century plate glass window on the first floor, alongside a contemporary single-story extension at the front. The right gable facing the road also has a 20th-century 2-light casement with glazing bars. The rear wall has no openings, and the ground level is higher.

Inside, there is a chamfered cross beam with run-out stops, while the other main cross beam is boxed in. The rear wall fireplace has been filled with a 20th-century fireplace. The roof features four trusses with unmchamfered cranked collars morticed into straight principals, incorporating three tiers of threaded purlins and trenching for a missing diagonal ridgepiece. Some of the original rafters remain. The roof is heavily smoke-blackened at the right end, gradually diminishing towards the left end. The left end truss is close to the left end of the range, suggesting the house may have extended further at that point.