8, Lower Street

No. 8, Lower Street is a pair of cottages, originally a single house, dating to the early 16th century, with significant alterations in the late 16th and 17th centuries, and renovated and divided into two cottages around 1980. The exterior is plastered granite with a granite ashlar chimney shaft on a granite stack, and a slate roof, formerly thatched. The cottages are built along Lower Street, facing south-east, with the left cottage occupying the former hall and the right one the passage and service end room of a 16th-century three-room-and-through-passage plan house. The former inner room has been divided off and rebuilt. The hall retains a large stack backing onto the former passage, alongside which is a newel staircase. The cottages share a common entrance through a lobby at the front of the passage. The front has a roughly three-window façade with 19th and 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars. The central front passage doorway has an old plank door with strap hinges set in a plain oak door frame, with a small stair light above it and to the left. The roof runs parallel to the street, between adjacent buildings. Although internal inspection was not possible at the time of survey, visible features suggest a well-preserved house with 16th and 17th-century details. In the passage, adjacent to the hall stack, is a short section of probably 16th-century oak plank-and-muntin screen which includes the remains of a shoulder-headed doorway, and further down the passage is an oak plank-and-muntin screen.