Mill Cottage

Mill Cottage

House dating from the early 16th century, altered around 1600 and probably partly rebuilt in the mid 17th century. The building is constructed of rendered cob with a gable-ended thatched roof. It features a stone axial stack off-centre to the left and a rendered end stack to the left with a brick top stage.

The house follows a three-room and through-or cross-passage plan, positioned at right angles to the road facing south-west. It originated as a late Medieval open hall with a central hall, an inner room to the right (now the kitchen), and a former passage and service room to the left (both subsequently rebuilt). The hall was formerly open to the roof, probably running continuously from end to end, with rooms divided by low partitions.

Around 1600, significant alterations included the insertion of the first floor, probably completed in a single phase, and the insertion of the stack in the hall backing onto the former passage. An integral end stack was also inserted in the former inner room, though it is now truncated. The lower left-hand end (passage and service room) was probably rebuilt in the mid 17th century with an external end stack to the left and a square stair projection to the rear containing a winder stair. The front entrance remains in its original position after this rebuilding but no longer leads into a passage. A square projection to the rear of the hall may represent a former stair turret or possibly a former lateral stack.

Internal alterations, probably from the 19th or 20th century, created a small room (possibly a storeroom) between the hall and inner room, taken from what was formerly a larger hall. A large late 20th-century lean-to glazed porch has been added.

The building is two storeys high. The front elevation is asymmetrically fenestrated with three windows to the first floor and five to the ground floor, mostly late 20th-century two-light wooden casements in old openings. A late 20th-century three-light wooden casement serves the kitchen on the right, either inserted or set in a widened earlier opening, with a small 20th-century one-light casement to its left. Between the first and second windows from the left is a doorway with a 20th-century half-glazed door and glazed wooden porch.

The interior contains three deep-chamfered cross beams with ogee stops dating from around 1600, positioned in the hall and former inner room (now kitchen). The hall has a central beam resting on a stone corbel in the front wall and a half beam to the right-hand end, incorporated in the wall between the inner room and small storeroom. An open stone fireplace in the hall dating from around 1600 has a chamfered wooden lintel with ogee stops. The left-hand ground-floor room has a 17th-century chamfered cross beam with ogee stops and an old fireplace in the left-hand wall. A full-height cob partition wall rises between the hall and left-hand end into the roofspace.

The roof over the hall and right-hand end (former inner room) is smoke-blackened and dates from the late Medieval period. It consists of two trusses with large chamfered principal rafters featuring pegged mortice and tenoned apices and chamfered notched halved lapped collars. The roof includes threaded or butt purlins and a diagonally-set ridge-piece, sawn off at the left-hand end, probably when the stack was inserted. Also present are blackened rafters (pegged at apices) and battens, with the underside of the thatch unblackened. The cob partition wall at the left-hand end is unblackened. Over the left-hand end room is a 17th-century roof with a pegged truss consisting of principal rafters and collar.