Buttercup Cottage

Buttercup Cottage is a house dating back to the early 16th century, with substantial alterations made in the later 16th and 17th centuries. Part of the house was divided off in the early 20th century and modernized around 1970. The construction is likely granite stone rubble, possibly incorporating cob, with disused granite stacks and a thatched roof. Originally, it was a three-room-and-through-passage house, but the right-end room, formerly the service room, was separated and rebuilt as a smaller cottage early in the 20th century. The central passage is the remnant of the original through passage, the room to its right the former hall with a large axial stack backing onto the passage, and the small inner room has a late 19th- to early 20th-century axial stack backing onto the hall. Initially, it was an open hall house with a roof extending the full length, divided by low partitions and originally heated by an open hearth. The earliest change was likely the flooring over of the inner room. The hall fireplace is a mid-to-late 16th-century addition, and the hall was floored in the early to mid-17th century. The house is two storeys high with service outshots to the rear. The front now has a three-window facade with 20th-century casement windows with glazing bars, and the passage front doorway contains wide 20th-century double doors. The roof runs along the length of the building, shared with the adjacent cottage. Inside the hall, there's a granite ashlar fireplace with an oak lintel, the soffit of which has been cut back, and contains a 19th-century oven. An axial beam is stop-chamfered with run-out stops. No early carpentry detail remains in the inner room. The original roof structure over the hall and inner room is carried on cruck trusses; the lower sections are plastered over. Unusual, cambered collars are set high. The entire roof structure, including purlins, common rafters and the underside of the original rye thatch is smoke-blackened from the former open hearth. The cottage was formerly named Golden Pitts and, according to local records, stands near an early cemetery. South Zeal is notable for being one of the few medieval boroughs in Devon where a significant number of 16th and 17th century houses remain.