Cawsand View

Cawsand View comprises two cottages formed from a former house, dating to the 16th century with later 16th and 17th century alterations. The walls are plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with stone rubble stacks topped with 20th-century brick and asbestos slate to the front, corrugated iron to the rear, formerly thatched.

The cottages face north-east, set back slightly from the road and occupy a three-room-and-through-passage plan. The original house included a room on the left (south-east) end, a hall with a large axial stack backing onto the passage, and a service end with a gable-end stack. The left cottage incorporates the hall and the inner room, sharing a passage with the right cottage, which occupies the service end and has a single-room extension to the rear. Despite later plaster and wallpaper, the house retains evidence of its early development, originating as a late medieval hall house likely heated by an open hearth. It now presents as two storeys, with secondary outshots at the rear of the hall and inner room.

The front elevation is irregular, with C19 and C20 casement windows with glazing bars. Late C19 doorways were inserted into the front, with C20 doors and a C20 porch on the right. The passage doorway remains open. The roof runs parallel with the street, between the properties.

The accessible areas for inspection during the survey were the passage and the left cottage (formerly the hall and inner room), which are remarkably unmodernised and retain much of the original 16th and 17th-century carpentry. Oak plank-and-muntin screens line both sides of the passage; the lower (service end) screen is likely the earliest, possibly an original low partition, with chamfered muntins and a blocked shoulder-headed doorway where the stops have worn off. The upper (hall) side screen has chamfered muntins with run-out stops at the top and bottom. The hall features projecting, curved ends of large joists above the screen, indicating a lower end jetty. This lower end may have been floored in the mid-16th century. The hall fireplace has a granite ashlar surround but the lintel is hidden. The hall crossbeam has plain soffit-chamfers and is probably mid-17th century. The inner room fireplace is disused. A tight winder stair, rising against the back wall at the lower end of the hall, is likely mid-17th century. The hall roof is supported by cruck framing, though concealed by papering; other trusses are boxed into the partitions. The roof space is inaccessible, although smoke-blackened timbers are suspected.

These two cottages represent an interesting late medieval house within a rare Devon borough where a significant number of hall houses still survive.