Description
Three phases of building: mid 18th, late 18th and early 20th centuries. Most prominent now is circa 1790s. Gothick/castle style villa, with symmetrical N-facing entrance front, with rectangular-plan 2-storey, 3-bay main block at centre, and straight links terminated to either side by 2-stage circular turrets. This 1790s building added as new front to an earlier, mid 18th century 2-storey, 3-bay symmetrical gabled house, with slated pitched roof and corniced end stacks, orientated in opposite way (entrance to E or W) remodelled and heightened subsequently, during circa 1905 period of alterations and additions, and now largely concealed, both by 1790s building to N, and by Edwardian (1905 dated) and modern additions to S and to either side.
1790s VILLA: Rubble with polished ashlar dressings and quoins and openings with broad raised margins with droved tails; rubble originally rendered (as still to be seen above wallhead at parpapet; render lined out as ashlar); slated roofs, main block with piend roof (reslated recently, 1992), links with shallow piend roofs, and turrets with steep pitched conical caps. Castle style, with pattern book Gothick detail; main block with castellated parapet with mock arrow-slit detail and diminutive polished ashlar bartizans corbelled out over angles; large rectangular windows with 12-pane sash and case glazing and hoodmoulds; dentilled cornice and crenellated parapet. Single storey square-plan ENTRANCE PORCH projecting at centre bay, with elaborate cluster-shafted ogee-arched doorpiece with traceried fanlight to N, and single pointed arched windows with sashand case glazing in re-entrant angles, this porch an addition of circa mid 19th century, the doorpiece re-used, originally in the plane of the wall. Dummy windows at 1st floor on re-entrant sides. Single storey LINKS with 3 symmetrical pointed-arched windows, central windows largest, with margined glazing and hoodmoulds; flanking arched windows boarded up (1992); scalloped ashlar crenellations over links. Terminal TURRETS with large crosslet loop openings below, glazed, with small square-headed light at centre (some partially blocked), and small pointed arched windows at upper stage linked by continuous cill band; crenellated in front of conical caps.
INTERIOR: large single rooms flanking entrance and narrow corridor passage along depth of house to S; some early and later 19th century interior scheme survives, particularly in room to right (W) of entrance, with deep coved ceiling, grey veined marble chimneypiece at centre of W wall (?late 18th century); both rooms either side of entrance divided across halfway by later Victorian period beam. Window shutters 5-panelled, with alternate tall/vertical, and horizontally proportioned panels. Plainer room to E. N porch/vestibule with coloured tiled floor, semi-circular fanlight at inner door with 2 concave curved glazing bars, and 2-leafed panelled doors, presumably circa mid 19th century, when original door was relocated. Curved wall section in 1905 addition to E, possibly portion of original curved rear wall of 1790s villa.
EARLIER, MID 18TH CENTURY CORE: (now appearing as L-plan rear wing); N gable masked by 1790s building, S gable masked by 2-storey, piend roofed 1905 addition, with central apex stack (and modern glazing). Windows remodelled and semi-circular pedimented dormer-headed attic windows added circa 1905; full-height addition in SE re-entrant angle with 1st floor entrance. E elevation marked at ground by various modern additions.
1905 ADDITIONS: 3 additions to rear (S) central 2-storey block built onto S gable of earlier house, and pair symmetrical rectangular-plan, single storey 3-bay blocks to E amd W, linked to main 1790s villa; that to W with gambrel roof, containing billiard room, with arched braced timber roof, and Arts and Crafts chimneypiece with mirror overmantel and deep cornice on N wall to right; that to E with platformed piend roof, and modern glazing; timber sash and case windows with 9-pane upper and plate glass lower sashes were original to 1905 additions; dormerheaded windows with semi-circular pediment heads.
GATEPIERS; pair small circular-plan ashlar piers with cornices and pyramidal caps of circa late 18th century date to W of house; pair larger, square-plan ashlar piers, with rubble built wing walls to main entrance to road.