Aykley Heads

A house, later used as council offices, was largely built in the mid-18th century, with a rear wing dating to around 1700 and early 19th-century alterations to the front. The building is constructed of rendered material, with the rear wing being sandstone rubble and brick dressings, an ashlar porch, and a graduated Lakeland slate roof with rendered chimneys. Its layout is irregular, consisting of approximately three ranges around a yard, featuring a set-back wing to the right.

The two-storey front range has seven irregular bays. A Tuscan porch, with a half-glazed door, bracketed canopy, and flanking slit windows, sits within the second bay of the right wing. Above the door is an elliptical-headed sash window with glazing bars. To the left of the porch, a quadrant extrusion contains a sash window with glazing bars and projecting stone sills on each floor. The right-hand bay of the front range is blank. The seven-bay front range further left has a blank ground floor and irregularly-spaced, renewed first-floor windows. A cast iron loggia with scrolled brackets, balconies, Gothic capitals to columns, and a pierced first-floor band is present on the right return of the wing.

Inside, the hall has wood panelling at lower levels and plaster above, containing a large Jacobean-style wood chimney-piece and overmantel. A cantilevered stair features a wreathed handrail and curtail. One room to the right of the hall boasts extensive Baroque stucco decoration, including high-relief fruit and flower garlands framing doors, mirrors, and decorative panels, along with enriched mouldings, shutters, soffits, a modillioned frieze, and elaborate ceiling decoration. Rooms to the left of the hall have simpler stucco ornament, including a mirror framed in stucco drapery, cornices, and ceiling decoration. A hall at the rear of this block has a large fluted Ionic Venetian window and an open-string stair with a ramped handrail. A rear left wing contains a close-string stair with a ramped handrail and boarded balusters, and a second stair with a flat handrail and square newels. A rear central sash window has broad glazing bars. A bellcote inscribed “F D I” is located at the rear end of the left rear range, referencing Francis D. Johnson, who lived there in the mid-19th century. The building was empty and decaying during the time of survey.