France Brook Cottage Francis Cottage

Francis Cottage and France Brook Cottage are two linked cottages located in Ashton Higher. Francis Cottage likely dates to the mid-17th century, while France Brook Cottage probably originated in the 18th or early 19th century, potentially as a workshop.

Francis Cottage is constructed with plastered cob on stone rubble footings and has a thatched roof, hipped at the north end and half-hipped at the south end. It features a central axial stack with a truncated shaft. The original layout is uncertain, but it may have been a single-storey, attic, one-room cottage with an outshut at the north end, which was subsequently ceiled in the 18th or 19th century, creating a two-room plan. A doorway is located in the lower room, and a blocked doorway exists on the west side of the higher end room. A circa-19th-century outshut at the rear of the lower end room contains the staircase to the chamber above the lower room. The west front has two late-19th or 20th-century three-light casement windows at the center and to the right, and a blocked doorway to the left. A doorway with a 19th- or 20th-century plank door and wooden canopy is on the lower south end, alongside a 20th-century two-light casement. An altered chamfered two-light oak window from the 17th century is positioned above. The thatched roof extends over a rear outshut at the lower end. Inside the lower room, there are chamfered cross-beams: one with bar and hollow step stops, another with run-out stops. A solid cob wall separates the two rooms, containing a chimney stack with a large fireplace on the lower side and a late-19th-century cast iron grate on the higher side. Visible jointed open cruck truss posts are present in the front and rear rooms, chamfered only on their south faces and with jowled heads. The roof space above is inaccessible. The purlins are supported on the gable walls in the first-floor room over the lower end.

France Brook Cottage is whitewashed rendered cob and stone with a deep hipped thatched roof and a probably 20th-century stack in the rear center. It is rectangular in plan and likely originally a single-cell workshop, with a 20th-century lean-to addition at the east end featuring a corrugated asbestos roof. A first-floor 20th-century three-light timber casement with glazing bars and a modern 20th-century ground floor window are present on the front, with a front door leading into the lean-to. The interior was not inspected. The cottages form part of a group of small thatched cottages situated along a roadside.