Lower Town

Lower Town is a house at St Ervan, Penrose, probably originally a farmhouse and later used as a beerhouse. It is probably an 18th-century remodelling of an earlier house, with 19th-century alterations and late 20th-century repairs.

The building is constructed of limewashed slate rubble with a rag slate roof. The main range has a hipped roof at the higher left-hand end and a gabled roof over the slightly lower right-hand end; a rear wing has a half-hipped rag slate roof. All roofs are finished with red clay ridge tiles. Chimney stacks at either end of the main range and rear wing have rebuilt red brick shafts.

The house is L-shaped in plan, with three rooms in the main range and a fourth room in a wing behind the left-hand room. Probably dating from the early 19th century, a single-storey outshut projects from the front of the lower right end. All internal partitions are of plastered stud except the wall between the outshut and main range, which is solid masonry. The lower right-hand room is the kitchen with a gable-end stack incorporating an oven; the central room is unheated with an axial passage at the front containing the main entrance. A straight staircase rises from the passage between the central and left-hand rooms, dividing at the top. The left-hand room is heated by a gable-end stack with an oven, and the rear wing contains the parlour with a gable-end stack. The outshut was probably the dairy and features an open-fronted well-house at the front.

The exterior is of two storeys, with an asymmetrical two-window front facing the higher left end, containing 20th-century plastic windows in earlier openings with slate cills; the ground floor window has a cambered brick arch. A 19th-century plank door to the right has a slate canopy in the angle with the outshut. The single-storey outshut is covered by the main roof continuing down as a catslide and has a 19th-century plank door, a 20th-century two-light casement with glazing bars and slate cill to the right, and a pump-house to the left with a rag slate lean-to roof with an open front and a late 19th-century cast-iron pump. The rear elevation has exposed slate bed-rock at the base of the walls and asymmetrical fenestration of 20th-century plastic windows in earlier openings with slate cills. A later doorway with a brick segmental arch is positioned left of centre. The wing at the higher right-hand end projects forward.

Interior details include slate floors throughout and ledged-and-plank doors. The unheated central room features an early 19th-century fixed-light 21-pane window facing the axial passage. The lower right-hand room contains a fireplace with a rough chamfered timber lintel and cloam oven, together with a granite trough beside the fireplace. The ceilings over the lower room and centre of the house have soft-wood joists. The left-hand higher-end room has closely-spaced roughly chamfered ceiling joists and a large open fireplace with a cambered brick arch and cloam oven. The ground floor room in the rear wing has thin ceiling joists with ovolo edge moulding, a 20th-century tiled fireplace, and an 18th-century cupboard to the left with fielded panel doors and shaped shelves above. The roof over the main range has collars lapped and pegged to the faces of the straight principals. The roof over the rear wing has principals with straight feet exposed in the first-floor room.