Description

WEST ALVINGTON MAIN STREET SX 74 SW 5/204 Old Stones, Pay Cottage and School Cottage 25.10.51 (Pay Cottage only)

G. V. II*

3 cottages formerly almshouse/church house. Circa early C16 with late C18 addition. Slate stone rubble walls, roughly coursed at the front. Gable ended slate roof with Victorian decorative ridge tiles, hipped roof to front wing. 2 brick gable end stacks, one at side of front wing and stubby rendered rubble lateral stack at front. Plan: original plan or room use not entirely clear due to later subdivisions but may have been built as 3 cottages on the ground floor with one large public room above. A through-passageway runs from front to back left of centre with the doorways to Old Stones and Pay Cottage opening off it. School Cottage has an original outside doorway at the rear and a small wing at the back which may have been either a garderobe or staircase wing. At the front of it a late C18 parlour wing was built on. There appears originally to have been external access to the first floor judging from the doorways that exist at both front and rear, although the steps have gone. Either the front or the rear lateral stack would have heated this floor. Exterior: 2 storeys, Asymmetrical 5 window front with partly slate-hung wing projecting from right-hand end of School Cottage. Most windows to main range are 2 or 3-light circa late C19 casements. The ground floor windows are in original chamfered openings, the 2 left-hand ones with shouldered heads. On the first floor the left-hand window is an original 4-light moulded stone mullion with 4- centred heads and leaded panes. The window to right of centre was probably the same but its mullions have been removed and only the jambs survive. Between these two is a window in what was formerly an original doorway with a roundheaded voussoir arch. Below it is an identical doorway with C20 plank door. The wing of School Cottage has 2 replacement 16-pane sash windows on its front face and a leanto porch against its inner face with a hall door. The rear elevation has a very small gabled wing at the left-hand end, 2 similar roundheaded doorways on the ground floor; one towards left-hand end and one to rear of passageway. The latter has an identical doorway, now a window, above it to the right. To the left of these doorways is a projecting rubble stack cut off at the eaves. Several of the windows are in original chamfered openings with shouldered heads. Interior: Pay Cottage has unstopped chamfered cross beams. Original roof survives over whole range consisting of 6 bays (2 missing) of substantial principals, some with curved feet and some side pegged jointed crucks, with plain morticed cambered collars and threaded purlins. Although darkened in colour the timbers are unlikely to be smoke blackened. This is an interesting survival of a late medieval building, of a type fairly characteristic of this area (q.v. South Milton and Thurlestone) which remains surprisingly unspoilt externally and, unusually for South Devon, retains its medieval roof structure.

Listing NGR: SX7244043836

External Links

• Wikidata Q17534507

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Recommended Books

• 
  Period property manual, victorian house manual 2 books collection set by ian rock
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)