Hennock Lake'S Cottage And Old Slade Cottage

Pair of cottages formerly comprising a farmhouse, located on the east side of Hennock Church Road. The building dates from the 16th century or possibly earlier, with later additions to the right and at the rear. Parts were rebuilt following a 20th-century fire.

The structure features rendered solid walls and asbestos-slated roofs, previously thatched. A granite ashlar chimneystack with thatch weatherings and tapered crenellated top sits on the ridge, off-centre to the right and heats the former hall. A projecting chimneystack with offsets and a later rendered brick shaft stands in the front wall, off-centre to the left, probably heating the former parlour. A further rendered stack, probably dating to the 19th century, rises from the ridge in the left-hand gable.

The building follows a basic 3-room and through-passage plan, probably extended at the left-hand end. It is 2 storeys high, with a single-storey garage block to the right. The front elevation comprises five windows. The second bay from the right contains a 2-storey entrance porch, probably timber-framed, with an open ground storey supported by two 20th-century wooden posts. The front door at the rear of the porch is 20th century but set in a late 16th or early 17th-century chamfered wood frame with hollow outer moulding; it is straight-headed except for a small cranked arch in the centre. The upper storey of the porch has a 3-light wood casement window with 3 panes per light and a 20th-century imitation timber-framed gable, formerly hipped. In the left-hand bay of the ground storey stands a 20th-century door serving Old Slade Cottage, with a single-storey gabled porch of similar date. To the left of the 2-storey entrance porch at ground-storey level is a 4-pane wood casement window, followed by two further wood casement windows of different sizes, each with 2 lights of 3 panes per light. To the right of the porch is a similar 3-light window but with a single sheet of glass and top-hung ventilator in the centre light. The second storey has three 2-light wood casement windows to the left of the porch, each light with 3 panes. To the right of the porch is a 20th-century 3-light wood casement window with a transom window in the centre light.

In front of the cottages is a garden surrounded by a low roughcast stone wall with a good simple iron gate at the southern end. The garden path of Lake's Cottage and the area under and to the right of the porch have a surface of large granite cobbles. The garden wall, gate and cobbled surface are included in the listing.

Interior: Lake's Cottage comprises the hall, passage and lower room to the right. The hall has a chamfered centre beam with two half-beams having step-stops; joists are also chamfered with step-stops. The fireplace, which backs onto the through-passage, has a wood lintel with multiple mouldings, possibly of mid-16th-century date. There is a newel stair, now blocked in, between the stack and the front wall. At the upper end of the hall is a complete stud-and-panel screen with chamfered studs having diagonal-cut stops, believed to have been moved from the lower side of the through-passage. In the second storey, the lower parts of two side pegged-jointed cruck trusses are exposed; the upper sides of the purlins are chamfered with run-out stops. The roof apex was not inspected. The interior of Old Slade Cottage (the parlour end) was not inspected except for the right-hand ground-storey room, visible through a window, which contains a chamfered beam and exposed joists. The reverse of the hall screen is concealed by plastered concrete blocks.