Lower Budbrooke Cottage

SX 79 SE DREWSTEIGNTON BUDBROOK LANE

6/85 Lower Budbrooke Cottage

2.7.81 II

Cottage, formerly a farmhouse. Early or mid C16 with major C16 and C17 improvements; reduced in size in the C19, currently undergoing modernisation (1986). Plastered cob on stone rubble footings; stone rubble stack with a granite ashlar chimney shaft; thatch roof. Plan and development: originally a 3-room-and-through-passage plan house built across the hillslope facing south-south-east, say south. It is now a 2-room plan cottage comprising the small and unheated former inner room at the left (west) end and the former hall with a newel turret projecting to rear at the upper end of the hall and a large right gable end stack. In fact this was formerly an axial stack backing onto the through-passage, but passage and service end room have been demolished. Since no internal inspection was available at the time of this survey it is not possible to outline in detail the early development of the house. Nevertheless it seems very likely that the original house was open to the roof from end to end, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth fire. The inner room chamber was probably built in the mid C16 and jettied into the open hall. Hall fireplace probably inserted in the late C16 and hall probably floored in the early or mid C17. Now 2 storeys. Exterior: irregular 2-window front of late C19-early C20 casements with glazing bars, the first floor ones rising a little into the eaves. The doorway is in the right end (from the side of the former passage) and now contains a C19 door. The granite ashlar back of the hall stack includes a ledge for the former passage chamber joists. Roof is gable-ended. Good interior from what little that could be seen since no proper internal inspection was available at the time of this survey. The upper end of the hall is a stone rubble crosswall and above the large inner room joists jetty into the hall and have curved ends. The fireplace is large and built of granite ashlar. The newel stair has granite steps. The hall is quite small and therefore there is no crossbeam, only a series of axial oak joists. The roof is thought to be the original since a side-pegged jointed cruck truss shows in the right gable end.

Listing NGR: SX7547492097