Tang House And Tang Cottage, And Attached Garden Wall With Gate Piers And Corner Piers

Tang House and Tang Cottage are two dwellings located on Tang Road in Birstwith. The house was built in 1754 for Richard Bilton, while the cottage is a 17th century rebuild of a 16th century or earlier structure, likely altered in 1754. The house is constructed of coursed squared gritstone and has a purple slate roof, featuring two storeys and two bays with quoins. The central entrance has a half-glazed four-panel door framed by an eared architrave and topped with a pitched-stone hood supported by two stone brackets. The windows are of three lights with flat-faced mullions. Above the door, there is an inscribed stone tablet that reads: 'This building / erected by / Richard Bilton / Anno Dom 1754'. The house also has shaped kneelers, gable coping, and tall corniced end stacks.

The cottage is a single storey with an attic, consisting of two bays. It has a three-panel door in a sawn-stone surround on the far right, with recessed-chamfered mullion windows of three and four lights in the center and left. The left side features a raised verge with coping and a kneeler. The rear of the property has 19th and 20th century extensions. Although the interior was not inspected during the resurvey, it is reported to contain one or possibly two pairs of cruck blades, which are indicative of the earlier timber-framed structure.

In front of the house and cottage, there is a garden wall approximately 1.2 meters high, with two pairs of gate piers and a corner pier to the right, each approximately 1.5 meters high, square in section, and topped with multi-faceted finials. The earliest feature of this group is the cruck truss or trusses, which likely belonged to the earlier structure that was partially demolished in 1754 to make way for the new house, with the remaining parts possibly serving as a service room or outbuilding. The building has since been divided into two houses, with extensions added at the rear.