Doverhay Reading Room And Cottage Abutting North End

Doverhay Reading Room and Cottage is a manor house that has been converted into a dwelling, museum, and information centre. It dates from the late 15th century and was possibly extended in the 17th century. The building underwent extensive restoration around 1895 by Edmund Buckle. It features roughcast over rubble with an exposed gable end on the right, quoins, slate roofs, and coped verges to the rain block. There is an external stone stack on the right gable end, which rises at the rear of the main block.

The structure is L-shaped, with a central hall and an addition on the left, while a cross wing projects to the right. It has one and a half and two storeys, with the lower addition on the left having its own roof and a 19th-century casement window that rises through the eaves. There is a pentice hood over a 3-light bay window, and a door to the right with a pentice porch. The main block features a 2-light ovolo moulded mullion window on the first floor and a notable 8-light mullioned and transomed Perpendicular window on the ground floor, which is under a hood mould and has 19th-century ironwork. To the right, there is a depressed 4-centred arch moulded doorframe, and the independently roofed wing on the right has a stair light in the gable end, leaded casements with carved oak frames, and Perpendicular tracery, all extensively renewed in the late 19th century.

Inside, the hall has a fine ogee-headed lintel over the fireplace, supported by shaped corbels. The ceiling features a renewed 6-panel compartment design, and there is a stone newel stair. An ogee-headed doorframe and an arched wooden door frame in the upper storey reveal an exposed 3-bay arch-braced roof and a moulded wall plate. The wing has not been seen. The restoration was funded by Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey.