Merlin Cottage, Comrie Road, Crieff

Hawkshaw Cottage is an early 19th-century, single-storey house with an attic and a partial basement, originally comprising three bays and of a classical design. The exterior is harled with whitewashed rubble on the sides, and features raised ashlar dressings, quoin strips, and an eaves cornice. A corniced and pilastered doorpiece and keystoned Venetian windows are prominent features. Stone mullions are also present.

The southwest (principal) elevation is approached by steps with flanking ironwork railings, leading to a doorstep with a simple inlaid compass cross. The entrance is through a deep-set, two-leaf, partially glazed timber door with a decoratively astraked fanlight incorporating classical motifs. A small, pilastered dormer with a ball finial sits above. Flanking bays are each marked by a decoratively astraked Venetian window, and a pedimented, raised-centre tripartite dormer window with a moulded, keystoned tympanum and timber finial.

The southeast elevation, which is gabled, has a decoratively astraked round-head window to the right of centre. Merlin Cottage adjoins at the outer right, and a small, segmental-headed basement door is situated to the outer left. The northwest elevation is also gabled and features a modern conservatory.

The windows are timber sash and case, with 8-pane and 12-pane glazing patterns (some are now fixed). Dormer windows have 4-over-2-pane and flanking 6-pane glazing patterns in timber windows. The roof is covered with grey slates, and the chimneys are coped and harled, topped with thackstanes and cans. There are ashlar-coped skews, overhanging eaves, and plain bargeboarding to the dormers.

The interior includes decorative plasterwork cornicing, some 8-panelled doors with brass door furniture, panelled shutters, and brass sash lifts. A timber-balustered staircase has carved outer-risers and square-section cavetto-coped newel posts.

Merlin Cottage was formerly a rear wing of Hawkshaw. Its southeast (entrance) elevation features a bay to the left with a later porch and a decoratively panelled timber door with a sunburst-astraked fanlight, and a bay to the right with a projecting, slate-roofed bipartite window that leads to a tripartite dormer window of the same design as those on the main house. The northeast elevation is asymmetrically fenestrated, with single-storey piended and lean-to bays at ground level.

Terrace walls are constructed of flat-coped rubble, with central steps flanked by stone lions. A harled cart arch has a mutuled cornice, square-section piers with ball finials, decorative ironwork gates, and flanking semicircular-coped lower walls. Boundary walls are also constructed of flat-coped rubble.