Westcott Cottage

House. Dating from the early 16th century, with improvements in the 17th century and a 20th-century kitchen extension. The construction is of coursed blocks of granite ashlar with massive quoins and some granite stone rubble patching. The stacks are granite, one original with a granite ashlar chimney shaft; the roof is thatched, with slate to the kitchen extension.

Originally a two-room plan cottage facing east, the larger right (northern) room has an end stack, and the smaller left room has a rear lateral stack. A kitchen extension projects to the rear of the left room. The original hall house had an open roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The house was likely floored in the early 17th century, when the end stack was inserted. The rear lateral stack may be as late as the 19th century.

The front has a roughly symmetrical appearance with three windows containing 20th-century casements with glazing bars, and a central doorway containing a 20th-century French window. The roof is gable-ended. A blind right end wall incorporates a late 19th to early 20th century store with a lean-to corrugated iron roof. The left end wall features a first-floor 17th-century two-light granite window with a chamfered mullion, plain hoodmould, and rectangular panes of leaded glass.

The oldest feature is the early 16th-century three-bay roof, with A-frame trusses; the right (northern) one has chamfered arch-braces. The butt purlins are chamfered with runout stops. The roof, including the underside of the thatch, is smoke-blackened from the open hearth fire. Crossbeams are soffit-chamfered, the right one with straight cut stops at the front end only. Two granite ashlar corbels project from the wall at first floor level; these are hollow-chamfered on their inner soffit edges and are likely the remains of a hooded fireplace.

The roof is a sophisticated example of 16th-century carpentry. It is possible the corbels suggest a conversion to a first-floor hall, or that the house was originally a wing of nearby Westcott Farmhouse, though there is no proof of this. The back wall has an irregular joint and is patched with granite stone rubble, but the ashlar masonry indicates the original house may have been the same size as the present one.