Tudhoe House And Laburnum Cottage And Walls Attached

Tudhoe House and Laburnum Cottage, along with the attached walls, are two houses built in the 1820s on the site of an earlier house, incorporating some of its original fabric. The buildings are rendered with a plinth and painted ashlar dressings, and have roofs covered in Welsh slate with stone gable and parapet copings, as well as rendered chimneys featuring renewed brick bands and an ashlar cornice. The walls are a mix of ashlar and render. Designed in a Gothic style, the houses have a double-pile plan.

The main house is two storeys high with an irregular six-bay facade. The first bay is narrower, with a step leading to a 20th-century door in a Tudor-arched surround with a dripmould. The remaining five bays are symmetrical, with steps leading to a central door, which has Gothic glazing bars in the upper half, recessed within a double-chamfered surround. The windows are two-light or single-light, featuring Gothic glazing bars and label moulds. The roof has wide gable copings, with the one on the right truncated below the apex. Four ridge chimneys are present, one set on a gable and another on a recessed gable. Four gabled dormers have sash windows with vertical glazing bars. A return elevation shows double steps leading to a 20th-century door in a gabled, two-storey central porch, with an ashlar-coped dwarf wall to the steps. The rear elevation includes a rebuilt wing to Laburnum Cottage, featuring a large Gothic-style stair window with glazing bars, several 20th-century windows, and two gabled roof dormers.

The interior features a longitudinal central passage, now divided between the two houses. The main staircase is located in a narrow open well with a round handrail on stick balusters and a wreath detail at the curtail. A second staircase in Laburnum Cottage has a grip handrail. A Gothic overlight with glazing bars and a single opening light is situated above the door at the foot of the second staircase. The right-hand portion of the building (No. 81) retains some original stucco ceiling decoration and a slender dado rail, although much has been renewed. Some 6-panel doors are fitted within fluted architraves, ornamented with Tudor-rose detailing. The left-hand portion (No. 83) includes a massive chamfered beam and a two-panel door leading to a cellar. The cellar in No. 83 has an overlapping boarded ceiling, while the cellar in No. 81 is brick-vaulted.

The forecourt walls project from the ends of the houses, enclosing the forecourt area. The side walls are constructed of ashlar, while the front wall is rendered. Tall, square ashlar piers terminate the front wall, having plinths and pyramidal coping on cornices. The entrance to No. 83 is formed by an altered pier, and a break in the front wall provides access to No. 81.

Historically, the property was the residence of the managers of the Iron and Coal Company and belonged to the Salvin family.