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Summary

Description

Pair of 18^th century, single storey, three-bay, rectangular-plan cottages. The south elevation of each cottage has a central entrance door flanked by single windows and the rear (north) elevation has a single window. Both cottages have chimney stacks on the gables and roof ridge and these have thackstanes.

West End (to the west) was restored between 2002 and 2008 by Arc Architects. Its exterior walls are lime harled with exposed stone margins and the cottage has a thatched roof in Tay water reed with two thatched eyebrow dormer windows. The netted ridge is clay and blueberry turf. The west gable end has a single window at the ground floor and an attic window. The windows are timber, those at the ground floor are 12-pane and the attic windows are four-pane.

West End Cottage (to the east) has non-traditional render and slated roofs. The windows and entrance door are non-traditional replacements.

The interior of West End was seen in 2017. Joinery, crown glass and ironmongery has been retained where possible during the refurbishment. There is a fireplace recess with stone margins in the kitchen and the fire surround in the living room has reclaimed and salvaged stone. Rough-sawn pine roof timbers are exposed between plaster infill. Reclaimed pitch pine was used for the new stairs, flooring and doors.

To the south of West End is a small former washhouse (listed separately at category C, see LB2475).

Statement of Special Interest

Collessie is a compact village in central Fife that grew because of the weaving industry. The village retains elements of its early pre-improvement settlement pattern with narrow and winding roads and a number of 18th century former weaver's cottages survive. West End and West End Cottage retain their 18th century vernacular form, including narrow, rectangular-plan footprint, small window openings and thick walls which are likely to have built from locally sourced stone. They are prominent buildings in Collessie, as the first cottages seen when the village is approached from the west on the A91 road.

West End is among a relatively small number of thatched buildings in Scotland. A Survey of Thatched Buildings in Scotland, published in 2016 by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), found there were only around 200 buildings of this type remaining, most of which are found in small rural communities. Collessie has five buildings with thatched roofs and this number in one village is rare for Scotland.

The replacement of thatch with slates or tiles began gradually from the mid-17th century. Many hundreds of dwellings in Fife retain thatching stones (or thackstanes) at the base of their chimneys indicating that the roofs were formerly thatched, as can be seen at West End Cottage.

The traditional thatching material in Fife would have been oat straw. The planting of the Tay reed beds in the 18^th century and the increased availability of reed as a result means that most thatched buildings in this region are now thatched in reed.

Statutory address and listed building record revised in 2021 as part of the Thatched Buildings Listing Review. Previously listed as 'Collessie Village West End (Mrs Scott and Mrs Watt).'

References

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