Keepers Cottage

Keepers Cottage is a house dating from around the late 15th and early 16th centuries, with significant remodelling and extensions in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and a further extension circa the early 19th century. It is constructed of coursed blue lias rubble, with a double Roman clay tile roof, stone-coped gable ends, and stone rubble axial and gable-end stacks.

The original plan was likely a three-room and through-passage layout, with a large gable-end fireplace at the lower end (west) and a hall open to the roof. Around the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a floor was inserted into the hall, a partition in the inner room was probably removed, and a wing was added to the rear of the higher (east) end, incorporating a winder staircase rising from the parlour. An extension to the lower (west) end occurred around the early 19th century, creating a very long range.

The exterior is asymmetrical, with a five-window arrangement. It features 20th-century three-light casements; the first-floor windows on the left break the eaves. A through-passage doorway is positioned to the right of centre, with a plank door, and another plank door is to the left. The west gable end has large 20th-century windows. At the rear (north), various small casements are present, along with a through-passage doorway to the left of centre, and a gable-ended wing on the left with a 17th-century wooden two-light ovolo-moulded window on its east side.

Inside, the through-passage has a plank-and-muntin screen on its high side with scratch-mouldings, and a two-panel moulded door. A plastered stud wall is on the low side. The kitchen, at the west end, has deeply chamfered cross-beams with bar stops, unchamfered joists, a large stone fireplace with a slightly cambered, chamfered timber bressumer with a notched apex, an oven, and a small cupboard with a scratch-moulded plank door. The parlour, also at the west end, has a large stone fireplace with moulded stone jambs and a later arch, as well as deeply chamfered cross-beams; one is stopped with a cyma stop at the partition to the staircase. A wide newel staircase has a chamfered doorframe with a cranked head, and wooden treads at the top. A doorway to a higher end chamber has an ovolo-moulded frame. The chamber over the parlour has deeply chamfered axial beams and a stone tablet in the chimney-breast carved with the date AD 1583 SW and featuring a double-headed eagle. The roof structure was reconstructed, but one medieval smoke-blackened truss remains, with a large diagonally-set ridgepiece and some smoke-blackened common rafters. The rear wing has circa late 16th or early 17th century roof trusses with a diagonally-set ridgepiece and tenoned purlins, one re-used from a medieval roof; a closed truss with wattle-and-daub infilling is at the junction with the main range.