The Cottage Wick Street House

The Cottage Wick Street House is a large, detached house dated 1633, with inscriptions over the door indicating George Fletcher's involvement. Subsequent modifications have occurred over time. The house is constructed of limestone ashlar with stone slate roofs. It was originally designed with an L-shaped plan, but the re-entrant angle was later filled, creating a square overall layout. A service wing, now used as a cottage, is attached to the back-right of the main house.

The main house features a central entrance leading to a hall and staircase. The primary reception rooms are located to the left, arranged around a back-to-back fireplace. The front of the building, facing the road, is two stories high with attics, and showcases twin coped gables with a parapet between them. It has three windows, with hollow chamfered recessed mullion casement windows. The ground floor features a three-light window with an additional single light to the left of the arched front door, which has a keyed and rusticated surround, all sitting beneath a continuous moulded string course that extends up and over the door and is returned to the south and west fronts. The first floor has three, two, and three-light windows, and the gables feature two-light windows, all with stopped hoods.

The south-facing return has twin, full-height Cotswold gables, with three-light windows on both the ground and first floors, and two-light windows in the gables, mirroring the entrance front. The west front presents a late gable addition, a connecting unit that fills the re-entrant angle of the original “L,” and contains an original stair turret with 3 over 2 over 2-light casements. A main coped gable of the original building features 2 over 3 over 3-light casements, and a two-light window extending to the basement. The stair turret projects beyond the gabled end and features a single over a double lancet window. The north front now has a principal 20th-century entry door and contains casements in a matching style, some dating from the 20th century. A flight of stone steps leads up to the attached cottage. Large ashlar stacks with capping are visible on the left half, with a second stack on the right.

The interior of the main house includes a room to the right of the hall that may contain an earlier spiral staircase. The front parlour has six panels with a guilloche surround, and a fireback dated 1616(?) within an eared architrave featuring a pulvinated frieze and fielded panels with oak leaf enrichment. A drawing room features a large four-centred fire opening with linenfold decoration, a two-panel plaster ceiling with roses, a beam with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops, a shell cupboard and a two-panel door with early 17th-century hinges. The dining room has a two-panel ceiling in plaster with pomegranate motifs, a chamfered beam, two good early panelled doors, an 18th-century fielded panel window seat, a 1930s fireplace set within an old bressummer opening, an arched door leading to the kitchen, and a graffito dating from 1717. One bedroom has an 18th-century fire surround with a fluted keystone, fielded panel sides and a two-panel early door.

The cottage, possibly designed by Detmar Blow, retains some very wide floorboards, up to 750mm across. It is a fine house that has been sensitively treated where modifications or additions have been made.