Llanaway Cottages Nss Newsagents

A pair of cottages dating to 1875, built for Miss C Hallam and Mrs C Birt and subsequently altered. The ground floor is of purple-red brick in English bond with red-brick dressings; the first floor is tile hung, featuring decorative bands of fish-scale tiles. The building has a plain tile roof. It is two storeys and four bays, constructed in a Vernacular Revival style. The windows are wooden, mullioned and transomed with casements and small-paned upper lights. The first floor has a battered base resting on wood-bracketed coving. The garden elevation’s left bay has a two-light window to the first floor. The second bay is gabled with three-light windows to the ground floor, and single-light windows to the returns; a jettied first floor is timber-framed with pargetted plaster infill, including the date, and has a two-light window. The third bay features a three-light window on each floor. The fourth bay has a ground-floor oriel window of 1:3:1 lights with a hipped roof; the first floor has a three-light window below the gable, topped with collared bargeboards and a pendant finial. The half-hipped roof has two cross-ridge stacks with battered bases and crested ridge tiles (now removed from Number 7). The right return has two bays, with the right-hand bay lower and incorporating a diagonally-boarded door (leading to Number 9) beneath a pent canopy supported by shaped brackets, and a stepped three-light window above. The gable of the main range has a three-light window with a pentice. The left return mirrors the first floor design, although the main-range window has been replaced. A 20th-century shop front is present on the ground floor, and a late 20th-century addition on the left is not of special interest. The cottages are one of three pairs built around a central garden; Numbers 11 and 13 are similar and have stone detailing with dates and the names of the patronesses. Numbers 7 and 9 share a design with Numbers 15 and 17, but have been more affected by alterations.