Wards Cottage

Wards Cottage is a house dating from the 17th century, and possibly incorporating elements of an earlier medieval building. It underwent significant alterations and additions in the mid to late 19th century. The walls are likely rendered over cob, with some areas rebuilt in painted stone rubble. The roof is gabled, covered in 20th-century machine-tile, and likely originally thatched. A rear outshut is covered in 20th-century clay tiles. The house features a stone stack to the front with a tall, square red brick shaft, and a brick end stack to the left.

The original layout consisted of three rooms and a cross or through passage (the ground falls to the right). The main hall has a full-height projecting square bay with a prominent external stone stack and a brick shaft. To the right of the hall is the cross or through passage, and to the left is a former inner room, now the kitchen, with its own integral end stack. It is believed the 17th-century alterations may have involved demolishing a former service room and enlarging or adding the kitchen. A dairy, now the bathroom, was created in the rear of the passage in the late 19th century. Further alterations during the late 19th century included the installation of a rear staircase and the addition of a continuous outshut at the rear.

The front of the house presents a symmetrical appearance with three windows. It has 19th-century two- and three-light wooden casement windows. The front hall bay features an external stack with an offset to a tall, square 19th-century brick shaft The front door is a 17th-century plank door, complete with nail-studded planks, wrought-iron strap hinges, and a chamfered wooden frame with mason's mitred joints. The left-hand gable end has a 19th-century four-pane fixed window on the first floor, a small 19th-century one-light casement to the left, and a 20th-century two-light casement replacing a former bread oven on the ground floor. A plank door is positioned on the right. The continuous rear outshut is open-fronted, running along the rear of the hall.

Inside, the hall has plastered walls and ceiling, with 19th-century matchboarded dados and stairs to the rear. A window seat is in front of the front window. The kitchen retains a 17th-century chamfered cross beam with plain joists and a blocked fireplace with a wooden lintel. First-floor rooms have original floorboards. The roof space was not inspected but straight principal rafters, likely from 17th-century trusses, were visible in the first-floor rooms.