Studio Cottage, The Studio and ha-ha to rear

Studio Cottage, The Studio and ha-ha to rear

Studio Cottage is a timber-framed building of full-cruck construction, clad in weatherboarding with timber rainwater goods and a limestone rubble chimney stack. The structure is one storey with an attic, formed from a short range running front to back with a short cross-wing of equal height to the side, creating three gabled elevations with deep roofs of swept valleys and a fourth elevation with a long catslide roof. The high, wide gables are a necessary feature of the cruck frame.

The elevations are asymmetrical and weatherboarded above a brick and stone plinth with an offset close to ground level. Fenestration is irregular, with mullioned timber frames containing rectangular leaded lights and metal casements of one, two, three or four lights. A gabled dormer on the north-east side has a deep catslide roof extending over a porch extension. Some windows are later replacements, though in matching materials and sympathetic in style. The massive, rectangular limestone rubble stack has two drip mouldings. External doors are plank doors, ledged and braced, with moulded edges to the planks, decorative studding, wrought-iron strap hinges and wrought-iron door furniture.

The cottage plan is roughly square, divided internally to provide a large studio and living room to the left and a narrow kitchen, essentially a through-passage, to the right. A ground-floor lobby giving access to a cloakroom can be reached from both inside and outside.

The interior contains a small entrance hallway with a stone-flag floor and a newel stair formed from solid treads. The hall has a plaster frieze of oak leaves and acorns with a beaded edge, designed by Ernest Gimson. The living room takes up the majority of the ground floor. Cruck blades and other elements of the timber frame are exposed throughout, chamfered and pegged, with visible carpenter's marks. The living room has a large chimney breast with a wide opening featuring a large timber bressumer, carved to give display space. The room was fully ceiled some time after completion by extending the original mezzanine sleeping gallery across the rest of the room and inserting a new stair with stick balusters turning through ninety degrees, which sits in the northern part of the room and gives access to its first floor. The kitchen has few features apart from its door to the rear lobby, which can also be accessed from the adjacent living room. The rear lobby has a stone floor and doors to the outside and to a cloakroom. The main stair from the living room rises to the attic, where a small landing has doors to a bathroom and the main bedroom. The cruck trusses have twin purlins and cambered collars; the roof is ceiled above the level of the collars. The second bedroom is reached via the newel stair in the hall and is not accessible from the main body of the attic. It has built-in cupboards with doors similar to those throughout the building. Internal doors are plank doors, ledged and braced, with wrought-iron strap hinges.

The Studio is largely of split-pale construction, with one weatherboarded elevation and a thatched roof. The entrance has a wide weatherboarded doorway opening outwards and concealing half-glazed double-doors within. The south elevation has two sets of similar doors, and there are various windows with timber and metal casements. The western end is clasped by a long external porch, over which the steeply-pitched thatched roof extends. The interior is now divided into three roughly equally-sized rooms.

The buildings are set in a large garden with Cotswold stone walling to the rear boundaries. Immediately to their rear, a semi-circular ha-ha built in Cotswold stone rubble divides the buildings from the surrounding land.