Horncliffe House

Horncliffe House is a country house built around 1800 for William Alder, with a porch added in the mid-19th century. The house is constructed of ashlar stone and features Welsh and Scottish slate roofs, designed in the Palladian style. It has a central three-storey main block with single-storey concave linking wings that connect to end pavilions.

The main block has a façade with two, three, and two bays, where the central three bays are pedimented and slightly project forward. The pedimented porch includes a panelled door and fanlight set within a broad, hollow-chamfered surround, and the porch has rounded, rusticated corners. The central section features 12-pane sash windows flanked by narrow 8-pane sashes on the ground and first floors, and 9-pane and 6-pane sashes on the second floor. The outer bays have 12-pane sashes and 9-pane sashes on the second floor. The building has an eaves cornice and a hipped roof with two tall, corniced ridge stacks.

The concave linking wings have five bays with round-headed arches, square piers, archivolts, and full-length glazing with radiating glazing bars. The arcade on the right has a conservatory behind it.

The end pavilions feature Venetian windows set in round-arched recesses and hipped roofs with two corniced ridge stacks. At the rear, the central block has a three-storey, three-bay bow window, while the linking wings have keyed round-headed windows. The pavilions also have Venetian windows.

Inside, there is an oval geometric staircase with wrought-iron balusters and a boldly wreathed and moulded handrail. The interior includes many plaster friezes adorned with acanthus scrolls and other foliage, and a modillion cornice in the entrance hall. The Morning Room features a pine fireplace decorated with gesso designs of entwined roses and thistles, seaweed, shells, and sheaves of corn. The drawing room has a fireplace made of white and coloured marble with Ionic pilasters. The conservatory showcases mid-Victorian ironwork and includes a niche with terracotta colonettes and the crest of Sir Hubert Jerningham, who resided there in the late 1860s.