Oak Cottage

Oak Cottage and The Cottage were originally built in the late 16th century as a three-unit house, with the central rooms forming Oak Cottage and the outer room part of The Cottage. The property was part of the Merthyr Mawr Estate, which was purchased in 1804 by Sir John Nicholl, who subsequently enlarged the village houses, often dividing them into two or more dwellings. At Oak Cottage and The Cottage, the original house was extended (The Cottage), and the earlier house was raised from one-and-a-half to two storeys. It was probably divided into three dwellings in the 19th century, but is now two.

The pair of two-storey houses has earlier walls of rubble stone, later rendered and mostly painted white, with slate roofs. Oak Cottage, at the downhill end, has a slightly lower roof line and stone stacks on the right and left. Its two-window front has an inserted doorway to the right of centre, possibly an enlargement of an earlier window, and a three-light casement to its left. In the upper storey are similar casements. The Cottage has, at its right end, the doorway to the original house, featuring a segmental head and stone stop-chamfered surround. To its left is a segmental-headed window added in the earlier 19th century, with a replaced casement. Above is a heightened wall containing two two-light casements. To the left of the original end of the house is an added lean-to, beyond which is a long facade with a 19th-century Tudor-headed doorway inside a later brick porch, alongside hornless small-pane sash windows under shallow 19th-century segmental heads to its right and left (a horizontal sash window to the right). Above the porch is a two-light casement in an earlier opening.

In the downhill gable end is a corbelled first-floor stack, beneath which there is an inserted casement. The original, steeper roof line is visible in the gable end. The rear of the building is rendered and painted white, and includes a shallow stair turret and recently inserted windows and lean-tos.

Internal features recorded by RCAHM Wales include a large fireplace with a chamfered timber lintel and stone jambs, to the right of which is an alcove. A Tudor-headed doorway with a stop-chamfered surround leads to the stone stairway. The stair is a straight flight with a cross slab roof over, turning at the top through another dressed-stone doorway.