Myrtle Cottage

Myrtle Cottage is a small house built around the early 19th century. It is constructed from slatestone rubble with granite quoins and features brick arches with projecting keystones. The roof is a double span covered with slurried scantle slate, and there are brick chimneys on the gable ends of the front roof, as well as a lateral brick chimney located midway over the rear wall. The layout consists of a two-room central stair plan with two shallower service rooms integrated at the rear. The house has two storeys and a symmetrical three-window front facing southwest, with a central doorway that is sheltered by an early 20th-century glazed porch featuring marginal panes and a gable roof with a shaped bargeboard. The openings have shallow arches above them, and the original windows are 16-pane hornless sashes. Although the interior has not been inspected, it is reported to be little altered. Myrtle Cottage is part of a group of four similar houses built under a three-life lease system, and as of 1985, it was still occupied by a member of the same family. Under this lease system, a piece of waste ground could be obtained at a nominal rent, allowing the lessee to build a house with the understanding that upon the death of the longest-lived of three selected individuals, the property would revert to the original owner. Leases could sometimes be renewed for a fee. The cottage remains unspoilt and is part of a harmonious architectural group, overlooking a beautiful and unspoilt stretch of Cowlands Creek.