Laurel Cottage

Laurel Cottage

A cottage dating to the late 18th or early 19th century with subsequent extensions. The building is set back from Northover Lane and is oriented roughly west to east on a long, linear plan.

The main structure comprises a one-and-a-half storey central section representing the original two-cell cottage, with a single-storey hipped extension on the west gable end and a later single-storey eastern extension accessible only externally. The walls of the cottage and western extension are built from clay cob, while those of the eastern garden room are likely brick; all are rendered and painted. The roof structure is timber and is covered with reed thatch, with some long straw remaining underneath.

The principal south-facing elevation is roughly symmetrical in its central section. It features a brick porch with a plank door, leaded lights on the returns, and a pitched roof clad in cedar shingles. On either side of the porch is a shallow canted bay window with a shingle-covered roof; the eastern bay contains four casements with timber diamond-pattern glazing bars and a quarry-tiled cill, while the western bay has one fixed light and two single-light casements, supported on crude timber brackets. Between them, lighting the inglenook, is a small window formed from a single piece of dressed limestone. Two eyebrow dormers are set in the attic, each containing a pair of four-light casements with glazed side lights. To the left, the thatched roof continues as a catslide over the single-storey western extension, which has a round-headed metal-framed window with a central four-light casement, margin glazing bars, and coloured and textured glass. To the right of the original cottage is the single-storey garden room, accessed by a plank door; its principal feature is a projecting square bay with five casement windows.

The rear elevation contains two triangular bay windows with shingle roofs lighting the kitchen and garden room, and two small fixed casements lighting the pantry and living room. The rear and side elevations are otherwise blank. Windows throughout are timber-framed except for the bathroom window, which has a metal frame.

Internally, the front door enters directly into the living room, which has two roughly rounded timbers forming transverse ceiling beams with narrower poles forming joists. The inglenook occupies the entire east wall and is accessed beneath a pair of roughly-hewn bressumer timbers. It is ceiled and contains a recess with rounded walls, a relatively modern fireplace with metal flue, and timber seats built into its structure. The room adjoining the living room, now the kitchen, has undergone some replacement to its ceiling timbers. Internal walls are generally plastered with timber lintels to doors and windows left exposed. Internal doors on the ground floor are ledged and planked, some with braces and period C19 door furniture; windows display a mix of C19 and C20 ironmongery. A very steep central stair, almost a modified loft ladder, is enclosed by partitions separating the two ground floor rooms. Timber seats are built into both the inglenook and bay window.

Upstairs there are two rooms. The stair emerges into the eastern room, which has a simple timber-boarded balustrade around the opening. The second room is accessed via the first. The purlins are exposed and the underside of the roof is boarded, possibly over earlier lath and plaster.

The western extension contains the bathroom and pantry. The latter is formed by a single skin of brick laid side-on. The underside of the roof is visible, consisting of pole rafters and narrow branches forming battening for the thatch.

The garden room has a wide, roughly hewn cross beam and machine-sawn joists. In the loft above, the rafters are machined and the battens made from slender branches.