Gretal Cottage The Towan House

Gretal Cottage and The Towan House are two houses that were originally a single house and outbuilding, dating from the mid-17th century with later modifications. The buildings are constructed of cob with a stone plinth and rendered finish, topped with a hipped and half-hipped wheat reed thatched roof. The Towan House is two storeys tall, while Gretal Cottage is single storey. The Towan House likely started as a three-room, cross-passage plan, and Gretal Cottage may have been a former farm building connected to it.

The front of The Towan House features scattered windows, a planked door with a moulded surround beneath a 19th-century slate gabled porch supported by shaped struts. There is a large stair-turret bulge on the left with a deeply inset single-light window, two 2-light windows on the first floor, and a single-light and a 2-light window on the ground floor, all with timber casements dating from the 20th century. Gretal Cottage has a planked door under a 19th-century slate-roofed porch supported by timber posts, a 3-light window with 10 leaded panes to each light on the left, which retains its ring catch and dates from the 18th century, and a 2-light casement window on the right from the 20th century.

The rear of The Towan House has three 2-light windows above and two below, along with one entrance and three buttresses. There is a 20th-century lean-to extension on the right. Inside The Towan House, the left-hand room features a chamfered beam and a fireplace with a timber lintel that has a scroll stop, stone jambs, and remains of an oven in the back. A lath and plaster screen separates this room from the adjoining hall, which has a beam morticed to receive tenons of a now-destroyed screen. The staircase is original, and there is a coat of arms dated 1666, possibly 1686. The roof, visible only from the upper rooms, has three principals with trenched purlins, collar side pegged and morticed. The floor level is raised between the hall and adjoining rooms, and one door has fielded panels. The roof of Gretal Cottage consists of two principals, one of which is reinforced.