Briar Cottage Trotts Cottage

Trotts Cottage and Briar Cottage is a house dating from the early 17th century, with extensions added in the 18th or 19th century and further alterations around 1936. The building is constructed of rendered cob and features a thatched roof with gabled ends. There are dressed stone axial and rendered lateral stacks, all topped with brick shafts.

The house has a two-room-and-through-passage layout. The larger room on the right (north) is heated by a gable-end fireplace that includes an oven, and there is a newel stair next to the stack. The smaller room on the left (south) was originally unheated but now has a straight staircase at the back, leading up from the passage. In the 18th or 19th century, a one-bay addition, now known as Briar Cottage, was constructed at the right end, which has an outshut at the back that was raised to two storeys in the 20th century, likely around 1936 when the house was also extended on the left end.

The exterior is two storeys high with an asymmetrical three-window east front. It features 20th-century three-light casements with glazing bars, with those on the first floor positioned under eyebrow eaves. There is a very small stair window under the eaves on the right and two small sash windows on the left. The central doorway is sheltered by a 20th-century weatherboarded and thatched porch, with two additional doorways to the left. Briar Cottage, located on the left, has a gabled front on its north end, with 20th-century casements and a thatched porch.

At the rear, there is a later gable-ended wing on the left and an extension set back on the right. The original house in the centre has an eyebrow dormer with a 20th-century casement, a 17th-century five-light wooden mullion window to the right, and a central doorway with an old frame and plank door. There are late 20th-century rear outshuts.

Inside Trotts Cottage, the hall (right-hand room) features a deeply chamfered cross-beam with large hollow-step stops and a large dressed stone fireplace with a chamfered cranked timber bressumer and a stone oven with a cranked arch. There is a blocked staircase beside the stack. The chambers are ceiled, but two jointed-cruck trusses of the four-bay roof are exposed, showcasing jowled posts and two tiers of large trenched or threaded purlins. The interior of Briar Cottage has not been inspected.