TQ 64 SW PEMBURY ROMFORD ROAD 5/418 No 2, Myrtle Cottage GV II Former farmhouse. Probably C15 (certainly medieval origins) with late C16/early C17 improvements, minor C19 and C20 modernisations. Timber-framed. The main posts are exposed on the front. Lower sections are underbuilt with brick and upper section is plastered, tile-hung south end. Brick stack and chimneyshaft. Peg-tile roof. Plan: House faces east. It is a low building. The main block has a 2-room plan (although now the 2 ground floor rooms are united into one). Former unheated service room at the left (south) end, now with a projecting C19 end stack, and kitchen/living room to right heated by a right end stack. Lean-to outshots on right end and returning across the rear. Main doorway now through rear outshot and right outshot now used as a kitchen and has a late C19/early C20 stack backing onto the main stack. Origins of the house as a medieval open hall house. The left (south) end has always been floored (service room with bedchamber above) but the kitchen/living room was originally an open hall open to the roof, probably heated by an open hearth fire. It was floored over, a stack inserted and new roof built in the late C16/early C17. The size of some of the timbers used in the outshots (particularly the right end one) suggest that they are early, maybe original. Exterior: Irregular front fenestration with 5 ground floor windows and 3 first floor windows, 2 of which are half dormers with hipped roofs. All are C20 casements and most have glazing bars. Low eaves and tall roof. It is half-hipped to left and hipped to right but this is the lean-to roof of the outshot there. C20 door to rear outshot and another into the right end. Similar C20 windows except for flat-roofed dormer in right end which has rectangular panes of leaded glass. Interior: The original framed walls appear to be well-preserved. The timbers are of relatively large scantling and include large curving braces. Former left end service room has large scantling axial joists. The former hall floored by a chamfered axial beam and this is fixed to the chamfered arch braces of the medieval hall open tie-beam truss. Unfortunately this has been cut through its centre and therefore there is no evidence of the original roof structure. The rest of the roof is a late C16/early C17 replacement with clasped side purlins and using a secondary wall plate on top of the original. The late C16/early C17 fireplace is large, built of brick with a chamfered and scroll-stopped oak lintel and it contains various blocked openings for oven and ash pit. Myrtle Cottage is an interesting small medieval hall house. The outshots include massive posts which suggests that they are very early and may be original. Also, unusually, the formed jowls of the wall posts face outwards rather than inwards. Listing NGR: TQ6296841248