Rook Lane House And Archway To Rook Lane Cottage

Rook Lane House and the archway to Rook Lane Cottage is a late 17th-century building that was altered in the late 19th century. It features rubble walling with relieving arches over the window openings and a stone tiled roof. The house has end gables and two gables on the front, with coped verges and stone chimneys. There are two casement windows with chamfered stone mullions, and the facade consists of three bays plus one. The late 19th-century glazing bar sashes are present, with a prominent seven-light bay window on the left side of the ground floor that has transoms, ogee heads, and a parapet. The right bay has modern casements on the first floor and paired plate glass sashes on the ground floor. A notable late 18th-century door is set in an architrave opening, topped with a cornice hood on brackets and a fluted frieze; there is also a modern door with a rectangular fanlight featuring an intersecting pattern, including a section of glazing for a lamp. The house was once home to Frances Rowe, an 18th-century poet, and it was also the residence of the Smith family, who sheltered the deposed priest of St John's Church in 1662. The building is linked on the right by a segmental arch that leads to a two-storey, one-window gabled cottage with bargeboards and plate-glass sashes, dated 1898. Rook Lane Cottage is not of special interest.