Damerosehay Cottage

Damerosehay Cottage is a house that dates from the early 18th century and is a remodelling of an earlier building, possibly from the 16th century, with some renovations made in the 20th century. The cottage is constructed of whitewashed rendered cob and features a thatched roof that is hipped at the ends. It has a front lateral stack with a brick shaft, an axial stack, and a small brick stack at the left end.

The layout consists of a single depth, three rooms wide, with an unusually large hall on the left that is heated by the lateral stack. There is a small unheated room in the middle and a right-hand room that is heated by the axial stack, with the entrance leading directly into the unheated middle room. This arrangement may reflect an early 18th-century design, with the hall on the left and the kitchen on the right of an unheated service room. The right-hand end of the house is likely an early 18th-century addition, while the two left-hand rooms may have originally been part of a three-room and passage plan building.

The cottage is two storeys tall and has an asymmetrical five-window front, with the thatch eaves eyebrowed over the first-floor windows. There is an approximately central thatched porch with a front door that leads into the middle room. The first-floor windows are 2-light casements from the 19th or 20th century, with six panes per light, while the ground-floor windows are late 20th-century casements with leaded panes. There is a slight change in the roofline at the axial stack.

Inside, the middle room features a deeply chamfered cross beam with diagonal stops, likely from the 16th century. The hall on the left has two chamfered cross beams and exposed joists, although some of the joists have been replaced. Both cross beams show mortises on the soffit. The fireplace in the hall has 20th-century stone rubble jambs and a plain timber lintel in front of an earlier fireplace with a large timber lintel. There is a recess on the front wall next to the fireplace that may have originally been a doorway. The right-hand room contains two axial beams, one rough-hewn and one chamfered. At the time of the survey in 1985, there was no access to the roof space, but the principal rafters visible in the first-floor rooms appeared to be straight. Lower Towsington is one of several early farmhouses located off Days Lane.