Playbrook Cottage

Playbrook Cottage is a house dating from around the early 16th century, with remodelling in the early 17th century and 20th-century renovations. The walls are whitewashed cob on stone rubble footings, and the roof is thatched, gabled at the left end and half-hipped at the right. It has projecting stacks – one at the left end with an oven, another axial with a granite shaft, capping, and a projecting oven on the front elevation, and a rear right stack which is probably a modern addition. The plan is a single-depth, four-room wide layout, with a small additional room at the right (higher) end. The original core was a late medieval open hall, remodelled in the early 17th century into a three-room and cross-passage plan, with the hall stack backing onto the passage and a small unheated inner room. The lower (left-hand) end was rebuilt and extended, probably in the 18th century, which may have removed the passage. A steel girder replaces a section of the cob wall marking the left-hand end of the original open hall at ground floor level.

The house is two storeys high, with an irregular six-window front; the eaves thatch is eyebrowed over five first-floor windows, and a gabled porch with a 20th-century plank door is located on the front to the left. There are various steel casement windows, some small with four panes, others larger with 12 panes in two lights. A further small four-pane window sits above the porch, and another small light is positioned on the ground floor to the right of the door. A 20th-century glazed door is on the extreme right of the front elevation. A projecting bread oven with a slated top is located to the right of the front door.

Inside, the 17th-century hall has an open fireplace with stone rubble jambs, and a chamfered cross beam with ogee stops. An oak screen with chamfered and stopped muntins on the hall side, and a square-headed doorway with chamfered jambs and step stops, separates the hall from the inner end. The rear of the screen is faced with imported 18th-century panelling, and its original position is not entirely clear. A late 20th-century granite staircase in the centre-left room replaced a newel stair that was previously adjacent to the hall stack. The left-hand room features a chamfered cross beam and an open fireplace with a chamfered lintel, with a narrow chamfer and stops. The medieval truss over the right-hand end is a jointed cruck with a cambered collar mortised into the principals, which are mortised at the apex with a diagonally-set ridge. Smoke-blackening remains on the cruck, rafters, ridge, battens, and thatch. The principals of the left-hand truss are rough-hewn, with the apex not visible. Playbrook Cottage was once divided into two cottages. This thatched house has medieval origins and a picturesque, irregular front elevation, representing group value.