Bag End Cottage

Bag End Cottage

Cottage with attached outbuilding, located at Coulton Lane, Coulton. The building is dated 1806 by a date stone, though it may be earlier, with the stone possibly marking the later raising of the roof to create an attic storey. The structure is constructed of rubble stone with a clay pantile roof and brick stack.

Plan

The cottage follows a linear single-depth plan with a continuous outshut to the rear and a central stack. The only entrance is at the left end of the front elevation, leading into the principal heated room. This room provides access to the right-hand room and to the rear outshut, which contains the stairs and a pantry. A single-storey attached outbuilding stands to the left.

Exterior

The front elevation has two bays and is 1½ storeys high with a central stack and a plank door to the left. The windows are horizontal sliding sash windows, mostly with 2 panes, except for the right ground floor window which has 9-pane sashes with narrow glazing bars. The attic windows are smaller than those on the ground floor. All door and window lintels are timber. The stonework coursing is more regular at attic level than at ground floor level, where a wider range of stone sizes is employed with some vertical breaks. An irregular vertical break with stone coursing appears where the cottage meets the two-storey house to the right. A date stone inscribed "I J 1806" is positioned at the centre of the eaves level. The left gable is coped to the front slope and incorporates a shaped kneeler.

The attached single-storey outbuilding to the left has a standard-width plank door to the right and two short, broad ventilation slits at high level.

The rear elevation is covered by a continuous roof slope that extends over the house and outshut, with a simple verge to the gable. Both bays have a small window at ground and loft level; the left loft window is now blocked, while the four-pane right loft window retains its glazing bars.

Interior

The interior is largely unaltered, with vertically planked doors throughout, mostly of 3 or 4 planks, and those in the attic half-height due to restricted headroom. Most door furniture is in 18th-century style and hand-made, with spear-ended strap hinges, simple lift latches, and door handles with triangular leaf-shaped ends. The pantry door has a wooden latch and vertical ventilation slits. The left-hand ground floor room contains a 19th-century range with probably contemporary alcove cupboards to either side.

Where the chimney stack passes through the attic, there is a clear break in construction, likely from stone to brick, which may indicate the original ridge height. The attic floor and floor joists are modern. The staircase is probably 20th century but is considered to occupy its original location.

The attached barn has an exposed purlin roof with a spine beam at about eaves height, a blocked attic window in the gable wall, and a copper against the cottage gable wall with a simple piped flue to the roof.

Historical significance

The cottage, with its 1806 date stone, is of special interest as a little-altered and unenlarged example of pre-1840 vernacular domestic architecture. In its exterior plainness and the sparseness of interior spaces and fittings, it conveys an honest and legible expression of rural domestic accommodation of a simple type—the home of a farm labourer or smallholder at the start of the 19th century. As a near-complete survival of this increasingly rare building type, it fully justifies its place on the heritage list.