Hope Cottage

Hope Cottage is a cottage, likely dating to the mid-17th century, with additions from the late 17th or early 18th century and further enlargement in the late 18th or early 19th century. It is constructed of rendered cob with a thatched roof, gable ended to the right and hipped over the lower part to the left. Rendered stone stacks are situated at both ends of the building. A circa-1800 addition features painted stone on the ground floor, rendered cob on the first floor, and a gable-ended Welsh-slate roof.

The original layout comprised a two-room plan, consisting of a hall to the right with an external end stack and a smaller, unheated room to the left, with a front entrance and a 19th-century staircase at the rear. A further one-room plan addition was made in the late 17th or early 18th century, also with an external end stack. A low service wing, thought to have been a former smithy, was added in the late 18th or early 19th century and is set back to the right.

The front facade is asymmetrically fenestrated. The central, mid-17th century section has two windows on both the ground and first floors, featuring rebated wooden frames with 19th-century two-light small-paned wooden casements. A doorway to the left is accessed via a 20th-century plank door, beaded pegged wooden frame and a bracketed gabled wooden porch with some carved wooden ornament. The circa-1700 addition to the left features a late 19th-century two-light wooden casement on the first floor, a late 19th-century two-light wooden casement to the left on the ground floor, and a six-pane fixed window to the right, originally a doorway, with an internal wrought-iron bar. The circa-1800 addition, set back to the right, has two late 19th-century two-light small-paned wooden casements on the first floor and a 19th-century two-light wooden casement to the right on the ground floor. A doorway to the left is sheltered by a 20th-century stone porch with a lean-to clay-tile roof, a half-glazed door, and a small window to the right-hand side. A small first-floor casement is located in the right-hand gable end. The external stack in the left-hand gable end incorporates a bread oven in the right-hand angle with a lean-to slate top, flanked by small first-floor casements, one-light to the left and two-light to the right.

The hall inside has plain joists spanning from front to back (possibly formerly with a plaster ceiling) and a 17th-century open fireplace with chamfered dressed stone jambs and a chamfered wooden lintel with bar stops. The front windows include integrated seats. A stud partition, likely a later insertion, separates the hall from the entrance/staircase hall, which contains a 19th-century staircase. The left-hand ground-floor room features chamfered cross beams, plain joists, and an open fireplace with stone jambs and a plain wooden lintel. A front window incorporates a seat. The central bedroom (oven hall) possesses a small, rendered 17th-century fireplace with stone jambs and a chamfered wooden lintel with bar stops. The roof space was inaccessible during a survey in January 1988, but a 17th-century truss was visible in the central bedroom, situated above the left-hand end of the hall, featuring large straight principal rafters and trenched purlins.