Old Leys Cottage

Old Leys Cottage is a house that likely originated as a 17th-century farmhouse and was converted into two cottages in the late 18th or early 19th century, with a 20th-century addition at the rear. The building is constructed of roughcast stone and cob, with the cob reported to be present only in the upper storey. It has an asbestos slated roof and features large, matching chimneystacks made of well-crafted stone rubble, with dressed granite quoins at each gable. These stacks project with splayed sides, and the side facing the road slopes inwards sharply at the top, topped with 19th-century brick shafts.

The cottage-plan consists of one room and a staircase at the front, with a small service room at the rear. The two cottages are separated by a solid wall that does not extend into the roof space. The building has two storeys, while the 20th-century addition is single-storey. There are two widely spaced windows, which were formerly flanked by a pair of doors in the centre, but the right-hand door is now blocked. The windows have 20th-century wooden casements without glazing bars. The left-hand doorway features a good 18th or early 19th-century plank door with wrought-iron strap-hinges, and there is a 20th-century glazed lean-to porch in front of both doorways.

Inside, there are some notable 18th or early 19th-century plank doors with wrought-iron strap-hinges. The right-hand ground storey room has a wide fireplace with splayed sides and a heavy wooden lintel, which has been cut away at the lower edge; it appears to have never had an oven. The roof structure has been burnt at some point and features plain trusses with collars pegged to the faces of the principal rafters. The common rafters are late 19th or 20th-century replacements for thick thatching spars laid horizontally, some of which still remain. The house likely conceals early features under plaster, particularly the floor-joists above the ground storey, and the fireplace in the left-hand ground storey room is known to have a large blocked opening with a heavy wooden lintel.