The cottage was originally built as a two bay self contained dwelling against an earlier and larger house.  It had a large, 2 bay ground floor room, roughly 20ft square, with a similar size room on the first floor open to the roof.  The stairvice, chimney (wooden) and fire place were all external to the main structure on the same wall.  The quality of the workmanship is too high for it to have been used as a kitchen or servants quarters and the lack of any kitchen facilities reinforce the view that the building represented a self contained annex for relatives of the main house, possibly a Dower house. 

In the mid 17th century, whilst still attached to the original building, the cottage was extended to the right by two further bays. The first was quite small and replaced the earlier chimney and stairvice and includes a brick built chimney stack and inglenook fireplace.  The second bay consists of rooms of around 10ft by 20ft on the ground and first floors.  There was also a lean-to extension to this room on the ground floor.

In the early to mid 18th century the original building which Ketley cottage was built against was demolished.  Then in the 19th century the lean-to construction was replaced with an extension running the entire length of the rear of the house under a cat-slide roof.  Also at around this time the ground floor walls were rebuilt in brick as they are today, replacing the earlier timber and wattle and daub construction which remains on the first floor.

Finally, in 1976 Ketley cottage was dismantled prior to its site being flooded under the new Bewl Water reservoir.  It was rebuilt on its current site in 1980 and further extended by us on the ground floor to produce a much larger kitchen in 1997.