Essington Cottages With Attached Barn To East

Essington Cottages with attached barn to the east are a pair of cottages dating from the early 16th century, with alterations from the 17th century and likely divided into two in the 19th century. The cottages have rendered cob walls and a thatch roof, gabled at the left end and hipped at the right. There is one axial brick stack and a rendered rubble stack projecting from the left gable end with a brick shaft.

Originally, the building had three rooms with a through passage, with the lower end to the right, open to the roof over the hall which featured a central hearth. The hall was later ceiled, and a fireplace was inserted backing onto the passage in the early 17th century. The lower end remained unheated until a fireplace was added in the inner room, also likely in the 17th century. The barn attached to the lower room is probably an 18th-century addition. When the house was divided into cottages, the lower room was converted to outbuilding use.

The exterior is two storeys high with an asymmetrical three-window front. The left-hand cottage, No. 27, features a circa early 20th-century three-light casement window on the first floor and a single-light casement below, along with a 20th-century gabled porch to the left with a plank door. The right-hand cottage, No. 29, has three-light 20th-century casements to the left on each floor, a two-light window at the centre on the first floor, and a one-light window to the left of centre on the ground floor, along with a loading hatch at the right-hand end on the first floor and a central 20th-century porch with a part-glazed door.

Attached to the right end of the house is a one-storey barn with a wide central cart entrance. The interior of No. 29 includes a chamfered wooden lintel over the open fireplace in the hall and a chamfered half beam above. The lower room has a very heavy cross beam, chamfered with bar and hollow step stops. At the rear of the passage, now enclosed by a 20th-century addition, is an early wooden doorframe with a cranked head and a heavy plank door. The roof has been mainly replaced in the 20th century, but over the hall, original smoke-blackened rafters and thatch remain, along with the remnants of one smoke-blackened truss that has been cut off by the insertion of the stack.