Bluebell Cottage

Bluebell Cottage is a small house located on Cott Road, Shiner’s Bridge, Dartington. It dates from around the early 18th century and was later converted into two cottages around the 19th century, before being reunited into a single dwelling in the 20th century. The walls are cob construction with a stone rubble core, plastered externally. The roof is thatched with gabled ends, and incorporates scantle slate, with a half-hipped rear wing and early crested ridge tiles. The house has stone rubble chimney stacks with slate weathering and recessed tops; the left-hand stack retains an old thrown chimney pot.

The original plan was likely a two-room house with two equal-sized rooms, heated from the gabled end stacks, and a central entrance passage containing the stairs. A two-storey, single-room rear wing, possibly an addition from the later 18th century, is unheated. An outshut was added behind the right-hand room during the 19th-century conversion. The house has been reunited as a single dwelling, retaining two front doorways and a central staircase.

The front elevation has a regular three-window arrangement. It features 18th-century two- and three-light casement windows, some with glazing bars, a 19th-century plank door on the right, and an 18th-century two-panel door (actually a plank door with applied stiles and rails) to the left of centre. A slated pentice roof extends across the front, supported by probably 18th-century shaped and chamfered timber cantilevers. A small 20th-century glazed store has been built into the front of the loft end.

Inside, the cottage features fairly light scantling with closely spaced ceiling beams, having slight chamfers and run-out stops. The fireplaces have been blocked and fitted with 20th-century grates. Numerous 18th-century fielded two-panel doors are found throughout the house. A plastered partition exists between the first-floor left-hand room and the landing, forming a central room, and features a painted oval inscribed "Pan Intrantibes." Another moulded plaster oval, surrounded by laurel branches, is located on the opposite side of the left-hand room. A large moulded plaster panel is set above a blocked fireplace on the end wall of this room. A replacement moulded plaster ceiling, featuring oval and ivy leaves, was previously present in that room, though a small section of the original survives. Two small wall cupboards with fielded panel doors are located under the cills of the first-floor room in the rear wing. The roof structure comprises lapped and pegged collars attached to straight principals.