List Entry Number: 1308697. Grade II listed.
‘Cottage. Circa C16 with C20 additions. Rendered and whitewashed stone rubble. Thatched roof with gabled ends and eyebrow eaves. Two storeys. Three-window range. C20 casements with glazing bars. C20 door to right of centre with C20 open porch. Rendered chimney stacks at gable ends. Thatch continued over C20 garage extension at east end and over extension at rear (north.) Interior: heavy timber planks and moulded studding to cross-passage with doorway to lower (west) end with depressed arch and shouldered arch to back doorway of cross-passage. Large plain timber fireplace bressumer at lower end and stopped and chamfered ceiling beam.’
Coombe Cottage was probably named after the Coombes family who lived there. As will be seen from the 1858 map it was once close to other cottages and buildings, long since demolished. The map also shows a short length of channel off the Gatcombe Brook which runs towards the house from the Triangle Bridge, so it is possible one of the buildings was a ‘cellar’ for storing goods brought by water. Coombe Cottage was also rumoured to be a blacksmith’s forge, and has one of the few beech trees in the immediate area.
Miss Grace Norman gives a detailed description of the ruinous condition of the house after the Second World War.
