The Tower And Beeches

The Tower and Beeches is a house that has been converted into two dwellings. It was built in the late 18th century and extended and altered in 1910. The building is made of coursed rubble with tooled or tooled-and-margined quoins and dressings, and it features a green slate roof, except for the blue slates on the south extension added in 1910.

The front elevation has two sections with a total of five bays, rising two to three storeys. The left part is set forward and includes a two-storey bay window with paired sash windows, featuring a 12-pane upper leaf and a plate-glass lower leaf. To the right of this bay window is a porch with a renewed door, a plain overlight, and a battlemented parapet, above which is an 8-pane sash window. The roof is hipped and has a corniced ridge stack.

On the right side, there is a three-storey tower that features an early 20th-century bronze sundial set in a moulded stone surround beneath a 12-pane sash window in an alternating-block surround on the second floor. The tower has a corbelled-out battlemented parapet that supports a small corniced stack on the right. The right return of the tower displays a 12-pane sash window at the first floor level. The recessed right part of the building has two 8-pane sashes on the first floor of the left bay, while the right bay is the 1910 extension with altered windows. The roof on this side is hipped with two ridge stacks, one rendered and the other stepped and corniced.

The two-bay left return features 12-pane sashes in alternating-block surrounds, and the rear elevation has a canted bay added in 1910. Inside, there is an open-well stair in the tower, which has stick balusters and a steeply-ramped moulded handrail.

Previously known as Tower Cottage, this building once served as a school. The tower is believed to have been constructed as an astronomical observatory by a curate in the 18th century. The 20th-century extension on the south side is not considered of special interest.