Bank Cottage And Bank House

Bank Cottage and Bank House are a pair of houses, believed to have originated as an inn, dating to around the late 16th or early 17th century. The building has undergone extensions and remodeling in the late 17th or early 18th century, and again in the 19th century. The construction is roughcast rendered stone rubble, with an asbestos tile roof and gabled end hipped ends. It features axial, lateral, and end stacks with rendered and brick shafts.

The original layout was of a 3-room plan with a through-passage between the left-hand and central rooms. The left-hand room has a rear lateral stack and a truncated wing at the back. The central room is heated from an axial stack backing onto the through-passage. The right-hand room has an end stack, a projecting 2-story bay at the front, and a wing at the back with a gable end stack and external stone steps (now within a turreted rear wing) leading to the loft. A wide straight staircase is located between the rear wing and the front left-hand room. A later single-story outshut is situated behind the centre room.

The building's evolution is complex; the left-hand end of the front range retains a late 16th or early 17th century truss. The 2-story projecting bay is likely from the 17th century, while the rear left-hand wing and the truncated right-hand rear wing are probably late 17th or 18th-century additions. The centre and right-hand end of the range appear to have been remodeled in the 18th century.

The south front has an asymmetrical 5-window arrangement. Bank House, which occupies the central and right-hand portions, projects slightly and has 20th-century casement windows and a central doorway with an early 20th-century glazed door under a gabled canopy. Bank Cottage, to the left, has a recessed doorway with a lean-to canopy and a 20th-century glazed door, as well as a 2-story projecting gabled bay with late 19th or early 20th-century 2 and 3-light casements.

The rear elevation includes a 2-story, attic wing of Bank Cottage with a large projecting gable end stack with set-offs and external stone steps. Between the two rear wings of both houses is a later single-story outshut.

Inside Bank Cottage, there are no exposed ceiling beams, and the fireplaces have been blocked. The roof over the front range contains a truss with large principals, mortise and tenoned at the apex, with holes for a diagonal ridgepiece and purlins, but no collar. There are traces of soot on the truss. The roof over the rear wing has large straight principals, mortise and tenoned at the apex, trenches for purloins, but no collars. Bank House has a complete set of 2-panel doors on the ground and first floors. The chimney-pieces are 20th century, and on either side of the fireplace are 18th-century china cupboards with fielded panel doors. The roof structure at this end has been replaced. Stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops are present in the roof structure.