Straithead Cottage

Straithead Cottage is a house dating from the 17th century or earlier, located in Doddiscombsleigh. It is constructed of whitewashed rendered cob and stone, topped with a thatched roof that is gabled at both ends, and features a projecting stack on the left end. The building has a T-shaped plan, although the original internal layout is not entirely clear. There is a heated room at the left end, separated from the central room by an irregular passage that includes a modern staircase at the rear. The central room is unheated and slightly misaligned with the left end room, while the right end room has been converted from an outbuilding.

The front wing of the house is timber framed on the first floor, and entry is through the end of this wing via a doorway on the left that leads into the irregular passage. The exterior is two storeys high with a window arrangement of one window in the left wing, one in the centre, and one in the right. The porch features an ovolo-moulded square-headed doorframe, with an altered shouldered inner doorframe. To the right of the doorway, there is a three-light casement window, and a fine and unusual 17th-century four-light oriel window on the first floor of the wing, supported by moulded carved console brackets and featuring moulded mullions. The main range has a two-light casement window to the left on the ground floor, and a 20th-century door to the right, accompanied by a two-light casement window.

The rear elevation, which faces the road, includes six small casement windows, with one of the first-floor three-light casements dating from the 18th century and having square leaded panes. Inside, there are remnants of a plank and muntin screen between the passage and the heated room, along with a rough chamfered crossbeam in the heated room, which contains a 20th-century fireplace. The first floor of the wing is supported by a possibly reused ovolo-moulded crossbeam, and there is a chamfered beam with run-out stops in the room to the right of the passage. Three of the first-floor rooms still have remnants of 17th-century plaster cornices. The roof features a side-pegged jointed cruck truss over the left-hand end of the house and a boxed-in truss over the centre. Access to the apex was not available during the survey in 1987, but examining the apex could determine if either of the trusses is medieval.