Hour Cottage

Hour Cottage, High Bickington Lower Village

A farmhouse, later divided and now a house. The building dates from probably the late 16th or early 17th century, possibly enlarged in the late 17th century or later, and underwent alteration and partial rebuilding in the late 19th or early 20th century. The structure is rendered over stone rubble and cob, with the right-hand end wall rebuilt in uncoursed stone rubble with some red brick dressings. It has a gable-ended Welsh-slate roof, which was thatched until around 1930. The chimneys consist of a rendered stone lateral stack with rendered brick shaft to the front and a brick end stack to the left.

The building follows a three-room plan, sited at right angles to the road and facing south, with ground falling away to the left. The central hall contains a large external lateral stack to the front with an integral full-height square bay to the left, and possibly formerly with a staircase in the projection to the right. To the right is an unheated small inner room (present kitchen) and to the left is a probable former service room with an integral end stack and opposed doorways (now blocked) to the right. The former inner room was likely converted to a kitchen in the late 19th or early 20th century when the gable end was rebuilt and the present front door was inserted, with the staircase rising from the entrance lobby. The house was reroofed around 1930. Late 20th-century alterations included partial removal of the dividing wall between the hall and kitchen, a kitchen extension to the rear, and a glazed porch.

The two-storey exterior is asymmetrically fenestrated on the front elevation, with a pair of 19th-century two-light wooden casements on the first floor flanking the stack, a 19th-century three-light wooden casement in the bay to the left of the stack on the ground floor, and a pair of ground-floor two-light wooden casements to the left, the right-hand one inserted in place of a former doorway. A 19th-century half-glazed door stands to the right of the stack, with a 20th-century lean-to glazed porch. The right-hand gable end has first-floor and ground-floor two-light wooden casements with brick segmental-arched heads, the first-floor window dating to the 19th century and the ground-floor window widened in the 20th century. A pair of 20th-century French casements in the rear wall of the hall replace an earlier window.

Internally, a masonry wall separates the hall from the left-hand former service room. The hall features a circa 1600 cambered chamfered cross beam and half-beam to the left with stepped straight cut stops. There is a circa 1600 fireplace with stone jambs and a cambered chamfered wooden lintel with straight cut stops. A U-plan bench occupies the bay to the right of the fireplace. Evidence of a blocked former staircase remains to the left of the fireplace. The wall between the hall and former inner room (present kitchen) was partly removed during 20th-century alterations, revealing the head beam of a former wooden screen, visible through mortices. The left-hand ground-floor room (former service room) contains a 17th-century fireplace with splayed stone jambs and a chamfered wooden lintel with curved run-out stops, along with a cloam oven to the right with a door. The ceiling is plastered, and the south-west front window has jambs continuing down to floor level. The roof was mostly rebuilt around 1930, though one late 16th or early 17th-century truss survives without smoke blackening, featuring straight principals and a cranked pegged notched halved lap-jointed collar. The roof was formerly fitted with threaded purlins. The building was formerly known as Lower Farmhouse, now superseded by a 20th-century house.