St Olaves

This is a pair of cottages, formerly part of a larger house, located in the hamlet of Murchington. The site has earlier cottage origins, with the main structure dating to the 17th century. It was converted into a house in the late 19th or early 20th century, and later subdivided into cottages around 1970.

The cottages are constructed of plastered granite stone rubble, with some exposed rusticated quoins. Granite stacks are topped with plastered brick. The roof is a mix of thatch and tile. The cottages have an irregular plan, comprising three blocks. The easternmost block is a single-room plan with a projecting gable end stack and a secondary block projecting at a right angle to the rear, housing No. 1 cottage. The central block has an entrance lobby and a room to the right, with a narrow room at the right end; the end room and chamber above belong to No. 1, while the rest belongs to No. 2. An axial stack serves the central room. The left-hand block is the tallest and projects forward, dating back to the 17th century and featuring a single-room plan with a gable end stack.

The front elevation has a window arrangement of 3:3:1. The left block has three first-floor casements with Tudor-style hoodmoulds, and another is located in the central block. The other two first-floor windows in the main block are gabled half-dormers with cusped bargeboards, containing triangular-headed mullion-and-transom windows with leaded glass panes. The remaining windows are 20th-century casements without glazing bars. Another gabled half-dormer is present on the right block. Both doorways have 20th-century doors, and a 20th-century veranda extends across the central and right blocks. A two-light window with pointed heads is present on the return of the left-hand block. All roofs are gable-ended.

The interior largely features 19th and 20th-century carpentry and joinery. However, the left-hand block contains a large granite ashlar fireplace with a soffit-chamfered oak lintel bearing straight cut, stop-chamfered run-out stops, and a blocked oven. The crossbeam in this area is also soffit-chamfered with scroll-nick stops, both dating to the mid-17th century. At the right end of the right block (No. 1), a tall granite stone rubble wall extends southwards, featuring a pointed arch of yellow and black brick and a herringbone plank door; the stepped gable over this is a rebuild. The cottages appear to be the result of consolidating and rebuilding earlier cottages to create a larger house, which was later converted into three cottages, with St. Olaves being excluded from the listing.