Harbour House

KIMBLESWORTH AND PLAWSWORTH HOLMHILL LANE NZ 24 NE (East side, off) 7/39 Harbour House (previously included in the Urban District of Chester-le-Street) GV II

Farmhouse. Early-mid C18 rear range; late C18 front range. Coursed rubble with ashlar dressings. Graduated green slates on front; Welsh slates on rear range. Ashlar chimney stacks. T-plan: rear range at right-angles to front.

Front range: 2 storeys plus basement; 3 bays. Raised-and-chamfered quoins. Plinth and sill bands. 6 stone steps, with cast-iron handrails and stick balusters, to central doorway. 6-panel door and fanlight, with radial glazing, in open-pedimented stone doorcase with engaged Roman Ionic columns on pedestals. Windows in rusticated surrounds, iron-barred in basement; 16-pane sashes above. Eaves cornice and parapet,pedimented over centre bay. Pediment tympanum, with brick infill, has blind oculus in moulded stone surround. Parapet has low end piers with scrolled finials. Steeply-pitched hipped roof. Lateral stacks with top bands. Left return: small carved head in oval on mid-wall quoin at junction between front block and added 2-storey, one-bay rear outshut. Early C19 fenestration: 2 wedge lintels inscribed DAIRY; one projecting sill inscribed CHEESEROOM. Set-back 2-storey, 2-bay rear range has steeply-pitched catslide roof with slightly-swept eaves and coped rear gable. Large 15-pane round-arched stair window on right return of rear range.

Interior of front block: entrance passage and flanking ground-floor rooms with early C19 plaster ceilings; panelled window shutters and 6-panel doors in wood architraves.

Listing NGR: NZ2821248288