Lower Budbrooke Cottage

A cottage, formerly a farmhouse, dating to the early or mid 16th century, with significant alterations in the 16th and 17th centuries. The building was reduced in size during the 19th century and is currently undergoing modernization. It is constructed of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, with a stone rubble stack featuring a granite ashlar chimney shaft and a thatched roof. Originally, the house was a 3-room-and-through-passage plan, built across a hillslope facing south-south-east. Today it is a 2-room plan cottage comprising the small, unheated former inner room on the west end, and the former hall with a newel turret projecting to the rear and a large right gable end stack. The axial stack originally backed onto the through-passage, but the passage and service end room have been demolished. The original house likely had an open roof, divided by low partitions and heated by an open hearth. The inner room chamber was probably built in the mid 16th century and jettied into the open hall. A hall fireplace was inserted in the late 16th century, and the hall was probably floored in the early or mid 17th century. The exterior features a 2-window front with late 19th-early 20th century casement windows with glazing bars. The doorway, located on the right end (from the former passage side), now has a 19th-century door. The granite ashlar back of the hall stack incorporates a ledge for the former passage chamber joists. The roof is gable-ended. Interior features include stone rubble crosswalls in the upper end of the hall, and joists that jetty into the hall above the large inner room. The fireplace is built of granite ashlar. A newel stair has granite steps, and the hall contains a series of axial oak joists; a side-pegged jointed cruck truss is visible in the right gable end, suggesting the roof is original.