Underhill Cottage

Underhill Cottage is a detached house, likely dating back to the 17th century, although a beam is carved with the inscription WH 1721, which may be associated with it. The house is constructed of painted rubble with painted brick stacks and a pantile roof. Its original layout was probably a long, one-room-thick design, possibly originally two cottages or a cottage with end outbuildings. The right half may have originally followed a cross-passage plan with two heated rooms.

The front of the house features five two-light leaded casement windows on each of the two storeys, with segmental heads to the ground floor windows. A gabled open-fronted stone porch shelters a 17th-century studded two-panel door, believed to have been salvaged from a church. There are two gable stacks and one ridge stack, with raised stepped copings. The right-hand return shows a single casement above the pitched roof of an outbuilding. The left-hand return is plain and continues as a boundary wall along Copse Wood Lane. The rear elevation contains a three-light casement to the left, a part-glazed door within a gabled porch opposite the front entrance, and a plank service door with a glass panel to the far right. Two flush gables flank a plain central section, each with a two-light and a single-light casement respectively, and an eaves stack to the right of the right-hand gable. A large lay light is visible in the roof to the left.

The interior retains a good chamfered transverse beam in the middle room and a spine beam in the room to the right, both with run-out stops. The original staircase and fireplaces have been lost. The roof is a frame roof with replaced collars and butt purlins. A pointed arch opening provides access to a first-floor room at the left end.