19, 21 AND 23, EAST STREET

Three cottages, likely originally a single house, dating from the 16th or 17th century with 20th-century additions to the rear. The cottages are built of roughcast over stone or cob. Nos. 19 and 21 have asbestos slate roofs, while No. 23 has concrete tiles, reported to have replaced thatch. Each cottage has a gabled end, although the left-hand end of No. 19 was formerly hipped, according to the owner. A rendered tapering chimney stack with a later brick shaft is located on the ridge between Nos. 19 and 21, off-centre to the left. The right-hand gable features a large projecting stone stack with a tapered top, and a similar projecting stack with a plain top is located at the rear of No. 19. The cottages may have originally had a three-room and through-passage plan, with a hall stack in No. 21 backing onto the passage. The height of the cottages was increased in the 20th century, which is visible in the wall surfaces. The front has an irregular five-window arrangement. All windows have 19th or early 20th-century wood casements with six and eight panes, and all doors are 20th-century replacements. A glazed door to the right of No. 19 has a lean-to slated canopy; this replaces a former wider opening, where a thinner wall and a large hinge remain visible inside. No. 19 has a single wide window to the left and two smaller windows in the second storey. No. 21 has a doorway to the left, a lean-to slated canopy, one window to the right in the ground storey, and two windows in the second storey; the sill of the right-hand second-storey window drops almost to floor level. No. 23 has a doorway to the left and one window to the right in the ground storey, with a single window in the centre of the second storey. The interiors' second-story ceilings are undivided in all three cottages; however, solid walls separate them below floor level. No. 21 contains two unusual side-pegged jointed-cruck trusses – one partly embedded in the stone party wall with No. 19 – with rebuilt upper sections. No. 19 has a similar truss, formerly with a threaded purlin, the lower parts of which have been removed. No. 19 also has a very rough floor beam in the ground storey. The ground-floor fireplace has splayed sides and a replaced lintel, with no oven indicating the room was not originally a kitchen. No. 21’s ground floor has chamfered ceiling beams with mutilated step-stops. The fireplace has a plain wood lintel and a stone-lined oven on the left-hand side. Beside the fireplace is a small cupboard with an 18th-century panelled door with strap hinges, the surface of the panel featuring a tooled design. In the party wall with No. 23 is an old plank door with plain wooden jambs. No. 23 is said to contain a large, concealed fireplace with a wood lintel in the east wall.