3-8, Venn Hill

A group of six adjoining estate village cottages, with one incorporating a shop front, were designed in 1909 by Sir Edwin Lutyens for the Duke of Bedford. They form part of the planned village centre of Milton Abbot. The cottages are built of local stone rubble with slate roofs, which are hipped and gabled at the ends, and laid in diminishing courses. Short stone stacks are visible on the ridge, along with a projecting lateral stack to the south wing. The architectural style is vernacular revival.

The cottages form an approximate U-shaped plan on a raised site to the east of the churchyard, with a front courtyard defined by a retaining wall between the north and south front wings. An archway between numbers 5 and 6, in the centre of the middle block, leads to the rear, suggesting a former arrangement of almshouses. The cottages are generally one storey and attic, with the south wing being partly two storeys and attic.

The middle block features a long, irregular six-window front elevation, dominated by a large central granite archway with ashlar granite jambs. Above the archway is a projecting block of unworked granite, likely intended for armorial bearings. The north wing comprises two staggered blocks; the outer block (numbers 3 and 4) has a hipped roof at the left end and a gable facing the courtyard. The inner block’s roof is hipped to the courtyard. The south wing has a hipped roof to the front and is one storey and attic to the courtyard side, but two storeys and attic to the rear and west end, which incorporates the shop front with a bay window onto the pavement, supported on turned wooden balusters.

The fenestration is consciously irregular. Ground floor windows are either canted bays with two-light casements and glazing bars, or similar two-light casements with deep reveals and flat stone arches. First-floor windows are either two- or three-pane casements with deep reveals, or full gable dormers with hipped slate roofs and slate-hung returns, containing two-light casements with glazing bars. Half-glazed front doors are sheltered by flat canopies supported on moulded pierced timber brackets. The shop window has 24 panes facing forward and 4 on each return. A stack on the south side has a gabled set-off, a slit in the front return, and a small window at the base. The rear of the middle block retains intact fenestration with two oriel windows and slate-hanging below.

The stone rubble retaining wall, forming the west boundary of the courtyard, creates a baffle entry with steps leading into the courtyard. A timber gate is likely a copy of the original Lutyens design.