Beach Cottage Tower Cottage

A pair of attached houses, dating from the mid-19th century, with Tower Cottage built upon the basement storey of a likely 18th-century former blockhouse. The construction is limestone rubble with brick dressings, partially rendered, and features an asbestos slate roof with a hipped end and a central brick ridge stack serving both houses.

The plan incorporates a front entrance to the outer side of each house, a projecting blockhouse to the rear right of Tower Cottage, and a gabled wing projecting to the rear of Beach Cottage. Each house includes a front room and a rear service room.

Both houses display gabled dormers with scalloped bargeboards and 2-light casements within segmental-headed brick surrounds. Beach Cottage’s ground floor has a door with cover strips and a hood supported by wooden piers to the left, and a 3-light casement with a cambered brick head to the right. Tower Cottage features a round-headed door with cover strips and voussoirs alongside a 2-light casement within a segmental brick head to the left. A rendered block is set back to the right end, containing a 4-pane light at first floor level. The right side of Tower Cottage steps forward, rendered, with a wall at ground floor level exhibiting a pronounced batter and a bull-nose moulding in metamorphic stone; it incorporates a round-headed 4-pane light at ground floor and a round-headed lancet with glazing bars at first floor.

The battered wall and moulding continue to the rear of Tower Cottage, unrendered, and include a round-headed 2-light casement with a relieving arch, alongside a single-storey addition with a hipped roof, a door, and a 20th-century window. A gabled dormer sits above, featuring bargeboards and a 2-light casement. The left side of Beach Cottage has a central 20th-century light with a brick segmental head on the ground floor, and a 16-pane sash and a 6-pane light at first floor, both within cambered brick heads. The rear of Beach Cottage, rendered, showcases a gabled bay with a 2-light casement on the ground floor and paired round-headed lights at first floor, all set within brick surrounds; it also features a 20th-century glazed lean-to porch.

The interior was not inspected. The Tower Cottage originally contained a four-storey Italianate belvedere tower with round-headed windows and a pyramidal tiled roof, which was demolished during 1939-45 following bomb damage. An Edwardian photograph depicting this tower is in the possession of the owner of Beach Cottage.

Tower Cottage, inclusive of its former belvedere, shares a similar style and date with Penlee Lodge, Cawsand, and 1-3 West Park Cottages, all of which also have a bull-nose moulding.