Ashplants, Fingle Cottage Rookwood Cottage

The listed building comprises two cottages, Rookwood Cottage and Ashplants, Fingle Cottage, located in Drewsteighnton. The core of the building likely dates back to the 16th century, with additions and alterations in the 17th century, and modernisation in the 20th century. The construction is of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brickwork and a thatched roof.

The cottages resulted from the subdivision of a larger four-room and through-passage house. Rookwood Cottage occupies the former hall and unheated inner room. A doorway has been inserted into the inner room, and the larger hall has a large axial stack backing onto the former passage. Ashplants, Fingle Cottage occupies the site of the former passage and two service end rooms. The lower passage partition has been removed, enlarging the first service end room. It features a 19th-century axial stack against the back of the 17th-century hall stack. A large projecting gable-end stack, probably built in the 17th century for a kitchen, is located at the right end of Ashplants, Fingle Cottage. 20th-century outshots extend to the rear.

The main block is two storeys high and has an irregular five-window front with late 19th and 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars (two to Rookwood Cottage and three to Ashplants, Fingle Cottage). A blocked passage front doorway is roughly central, now filled with a 20th-century casement. A porch of granite ashlar, gabled with a 2-centred granite outer arch, stands here and may be as early as the 16th century. The present doorways to the cottages have 20th-century doors; the doorway to Ashplants, Fingle Cottage, is sheltered by a 20th-century gabled porch. The roof is gable-ended to the right and continues with the roof of Edgecombe to the left.

Only Rookwood Cottage was accessible for interior inspection. The hall has a large granite ashlar fireplace with a side oven and a soffit-chamfered oak lintel. The hall’s crossbeam is also soffit-chamfered with scroll stops, matching the lintel over the blocked doorway to the former passage. The roof is inaccessible, and the truss is concealed within the first-floor partition. A curious round-headed alcove is present in the rear wall of the hall chamber; its purpose is unknown but it is believed by the owner to be a cradle cupboard. Although no interior inspection of Ashplants, Fingle Cottage was possible, 17th-century (possibly 16th-century) features are suspected. The cottages contribute to a group of listed buildings east of the Churchyard.