Portal

Portal is a house built between 1900 and 1905, designed by W E Tower. It is constructed in timber frame with rendered infill and a stone slate roof, exemplifying the Domestic Revival style.

The building is two storeys with a complex and picturesque composition. The entrance front is E-shaped and nearly symmetrical, featuring a central gabled porch with a round arch decorated with carved roses and the initials M B and F B. Three arched panels flank the arch on either side, with small framing and brattished enrichment above. Slightly projecting gabled wings rise to either side. A single-storey stable wing extends to the left.

The left-hand portion of the entrance front displays small framed walling with a slightly projecting first-floor window of 5 mullioned lights with a transom. The first floor is coved and jettied, with decorated brackets. The gable above has coving, a moulded bressumer and king post, ogee braces, moulded bargeboards, and a bargepost crowned with a crocketed pinnacle.

To the right, red ashlar walling rises to the lower storey, topped by a window of 12 lights with mullions, a transom, and a central king mullion. Coved eaves above are decorated with quatrefoils. A glazed projecting great hall oriel with a decorated gable extends to the right, having 6 lights to the front and 3 to the left side. Further right is a projecting wing, whose courtyard face displays an ashlar chimney breast with offsets and two diamond-pattern flues. The western gable end of this wing has red sandstone lower walling with ground and first-floor windows of 7 lights (mullioned with transom), jettied first floor, and gables with decorative 1/4-circle framing.

The single-storey stable wing to the left features a gable end facing the entrance courtyard with a 6-light mullioned window, ogee struts, and a king post. Its south face has close studding to lower walls and six 2-light windows with quatrefoils between, beneath coved eaves.

At the ridge centre stands a square shingled clock turret with a diamond-shaped wooden clock board containing a circular dial, corner obelisks, and an octagonal bell cote with volute buttresses, arched openings, and an ogee dome topped with a ball finial.

To the left of the clock turret is a projecting wing with rendered lower walling and small framing above, featuring a 5-light ground-floor and 5-light first-floor window with decorated 1/4-circle framing to the gable. Further left is a recessed range with an archway and 3 gabled bays, the latter partly rebuilt in modern brickwork.

The garden front spans 9 bays. The 7 bays to the left are symmetrical, with canted bays at the centre, left, and right forming five sides of an octagon; each face has 3-light mullioned windows with a transom. Between these are 5-light windows with mullions and transoms set in small framed walling with angle braces. The first floor follows a similar pattern, though windows between the canted bays lack transoms. Gables above the canted bays have angle braces and bargeosts, while smaller gables crown each of the remaining bays with decorated bargeboards. The two further bays at the left contain a 5-light window at left with a door to its right, and first-floor windows of 5 lights at left and 4 lights at right, with a smaller gable over the left-hand window. A wing to the right of this section was demolished within the last twenty years.

The interior contains a hall with glazed screens passage and a gallery above, overlooking an oriel. The hall has a hammer-beam roof with suspended bosses and a jettied and coved bedroom gallery. A panelled Jacobean fireplace of variegated marble is present. The drawing room features a plaster Jacobean ceiling with pendant bosses and a frieze showing mermaids. The study is fitted with moulded wall posts and a panelled pitched ceiling. A bay window contains 6 roundels and one square panel of German early Renaissance glass. The ground-floor gallery to the south front of the courtyard displays further panels of German Renaissance stained glass.