Megan House Prospect House

Megan House and Prospect House are two houses, originally one dwelling, with origins likely dating to the 18th century or earlier. The construction is a combination of whitewashed rendered stone and cob, and it features a thatched roof. The roof has a plain ridge, a hipped end on the right, and a gabled end on the left, with a half-hipped end to a wing. Brick chimney shafts project from the main range at the right end; the stack to the right is cob, while a projecting lateral stack to the wing also has a brick shaft.

The building’s plan comprises a single-depth main range, originally three rooms wide, and a front left wing added later, creating an overall L-shaped configuration. A two-storey rear addition, dating to the 19th or 20th century, extends from the main range. The original layout of the building is uncertain, however, it may initially have been a three-room plan house with a central unheated dairy and principal heated rooms on either side, possibly evolving from a three-room and through-passage plan. All three fireplaces include bread ovens, one of which has been blocked. The house is now divided into two separate dwellings: Megan House to the left and Prospect House, occupying the two right-hand rooms of the main range.

Prospect House has an approximately central entrance facing a straight stair, sheltered by a glazed porch with a corrugated iron roof. Small timber windows are of 20th-century date. Megan House has a glazed porch in the angle with Prospect House, with an entrance into the wing; the wing has two 20th-century casement windows in its end wall.

The interiors have been largely modernized. Megan House features a probable 18th-century open fireplace in the wing, with stone rubble jambs, a chamfered timber lintel, and a bread oven. A blocked fireplace in the main range may conceal earlier features. Prospect House has a probable 18th-century fireplace against the right-end stack with stone rubble jambs, a plain lintel, and a bread oven. A timber lintel in the right-hand wall of the stack suggests the possible former presence of a smoking chamber. A small, plain fireplace with cob jambs and a timber lintel is located on the first floor. The roofspace of only Prospect House was inspected; the timber roof structure is probably of the 19th or 20th century, consisting of slender, unsquared poles for both the main trusses and rafters, along with similar battens and metal fixings.