Withies Cottage

House. Dating to around the late 15th century, the building was remodelled in the 17th century and altered in the 20th century. It is constructed of coursed stone rubble, with a thatched roof featuring gabled ends. There are gable-end stacks with brick shafts, and an axial stack that has been truncated.

The house originally comprised a 2-room plan formed from a late medieval open hall, of which three bays of the roof remain. The western end of the medieval house appears to have been truncated, and its original extent at the eastern end is uncertain. The 17th-century remodelling included inserting floors into the open hall to create a 2-room plan with a central entrance and chambers above. The left (west) room served as the kitchen, featuring a smoking-chamber, brick-lined oven with a cast-iron door, and a stair turret projection at the rear. The right (east) room was the parlour, with a gable-end fireplace, and a newel staircase in the front right-hand corner. A large outbuilding attached to the right (east) end has been incorporated into the house’s living space.

The south front has an asymmetrical 3:3 window arrangement. The left-hand three windows represent the original house, featuring 20th-century 2-light casements with glazing bars on the first floor, eyebrow eaves, and a blocked doorway in the centre of the ground floor. The right-hand three windows belong to the converted outbuilding, also featuring 20th-century casements, dormers, and a doorway with a thatched canopy on the left. At the rear (north), a rectangular stair turret projects to the right.

The former kitchen on the left (west) has a gable-end fireplace with a low, slightly cambered, chamfered timber bressumer with cyma stops, a smoking-chamber, and a blocked stair turret to the right. The former parlour on the right (east) has a fireplace with chamfered stone jambs and a chamfered, cambered bressumer with step stops. Both rooms feature deeply chamfered axial and cross-beams, as well as chamfered beams set in the front and back walls. A stair turret in the front right (southeast) corner contains a wooden newel staircase with solid timber treads. A small 17th-century fireplace with a chamfered cranked bressumer is located in the left (west) upper chamber. The roof is a 3-bay late medieval structure with three side-pegged jointed cruck collar trusses; the two central hall trusses have chamfered arch-braces with diagonal stops; chamfered trenched purlins with hollow-step stops; chamfered curved wind-braces; and a diagonally set ridgepiece. Common rafters are intact, and all timbers are smoke-blackened from the original open-hearth fire, though the thatch has been replaced.