Pitt Cottage

Pitt Cottage is an early 16th-century house, originally a farmhouse, with alterations dating to the 17th and 20th centuries. The walls are of rendered cob, and the roof is covered with asbestos slates, featuring gable ends and formerly hipped to the right end. A rendered rubble axial stack is situated at the centre, with a brick shaft. A later brick shaft was inserted to the front of the right-hand side, likely in the late 19th or early 20th century. The house originally comprised three rooms with a through-passage, open to the roof timbers. The hall was possibly part-ceiled in the mid-16th century, and was fully ceiled around the early 17th century, with a hall stack inserted backing onto the passage. Unheated lower and inner rooms existed, and at one time the lower room was reportedly used as an outbuilding. The hall and inner room are now combined into a single space. The building is two storeys high, with an asymmetrical two-window facade, expanding to four windows on the ground floor. All windows are 20th-century, featuring 1, 2, and 3-light casements with glazing bars. The first-floor windows are set in small openings. A 20th-century plank and glazed door is positioned to the passage on the right-hand side. The hall’s interior features a chamfered half beam over the fireplace, with a stop embedded in the plaster. Another half beam may support a jetty, as the ceiling is lowered behind it; it is chamfered with a hollow step and notch stop. A six-panelled door leads to the hall. The hall fireplace lintel has been renewed. Three original roof trusses remain. The two at the lower end are side-pegged jointed crucks, originally with morticed collars and threaded purlins. These trusses also feature a morticed apex with a diagonal ridge. Above the lower end, original common rafters, along with a now-redundant hip post, are also visible. All original timbers are smoke-blackened throughout, demonstrating that the house was originally open to the roof from end to end. The exterior appearance gives little indication of the building’s age, and despite significant internal modernization, the survival of the early roof structure remains of considerable interest.