Rothay Cottage

Rothay Cottage is a building that consists of three cottages converted into one house. It has origins dating back to the 17th century, with extensions made in the late 17th or early 18th century and again in the mid-19th century. The conversion into a single house occurred in the mid-20th century. The structure is made of rendered and painted stone rubble and cob, topped with a rag slate roof featuring gable ends. There are stone rubble axial and end stacks, with a cloam oven projection on the left-hand end stack.

The original layout was likely a two-room and cross passage plan, with the left room heated by an end stack and the smaller right room unheated. In the late 17th or early 18th century, the house was extended on the lower right end by adding a second house of a similar plan, where the larger left room was heated by an axial stack that backed onto the end of the earlier house. In the mid-19th century, a third house with a one-room plan was added to the higher left-hand end.

The exterior is two-storey with an asymmetrical window arrangement of 1:2:2, and the ground slopes down to the right. The casement windows have been partly replaced in the 20th century. The central house features a 20th-century plank door in a gabled stone rubble porch to the right of centre, with a three-light casement window to the left and a two-light casement to the right. The house on the right is slightly set forward and has a three-light casement to the left, a two-light casement in the earlier entrance, and another two-light casement to the right, with two two-light casements on the first floor. The house on the left has a 20th-century plank door and a 20th-century two-light casement on both the ground and first floors.

Inside, the central cottage has bowtell moulded floor joists and a roughly chamfered timber lintel over the fireplace, with the run-out stops not quite aligned and granite jambs. The left-hand cottage features unchamfered wany floor joists, with the ground floor partitions removed and a roughly cut fireplace lintel that has a slight chamfer and a cloam oven. The left-hand cottage also has 19th-century floor joists.