Numbers 1 And 2 Plough Cottages

Numbers 1 and 2 Plough Cottages are a pair of cottages dating from the 17th century, located on Fore Street in Ipplepen. The cottages have rendered rubble walls and a slate roof that is gabled to the left and half-hipped at the right end. There is a large axial stack made of rendered rubble with drip courses. The original layout of the cottages is unclear but they are likely to have been either a pair of one-room cottages with back-to-back fireplaces or a three-room house with a through passage that has been truncated at one end and divided into two cottages. It is probable that 19th-century outshuts were added at the rear.

The cottages are two storeys high with an asymmetrical three-window front. No. 1, on the left, features two windows and an off-centre door. It has late 19th-century or early 20th-century three-light casements with glazing bars; the ground floor left-hand window is a two-light casement, and there is a 20th-century part-glazed door beneath an open-fronted gabled porch. No. 2, on the right, has a late 19th-century three-light casement on the first floor and a two-light casement below it to the right. There is a 19th-century plank and part-glazed door to the left under an open-fronted gabled porch, along with an outshut at the rear.

The interior of No. 2 has been inspected and features a fireplace with a wooden lintel that is chamfered with a hollow step stop on one side, though it has been cut off at the other end. Next to the fireplace is the original wood newel staircase, which has a possibly contemporary plank door at the bottom with old strap hinges. The central cross beam is chamfered with hollow step stops and is supported at the rear by a chamfered wooden corbel. On the first floor, the feet of insubstantial straight principals are visible. Despite their modest external appearance, at least one of these cottages retains its 17th-century features relatively intact, and similar features may also survive in No. 1.