1 And 3, Highfield Park

Nos. 1 and 3, Highfield Park are a house, originally a single residence, now divided into two dwellings. The property was built around 1830 and altered in the late 19th century, with a subdivision occurring around 1928. It is constructed of stuccoed brick with a graduated Welsh slate roof. The main house is two storeys high with cellars, arranged over five bays, with a single-bay, one-storey addition to the front left and a two-storey, three-bay wing to the rear right. Bay 3 is narrow and recessed, featuring an original porch with a part-glazed double door, a cusped-tracery fanlight, and a chamfered Tudor arch with a headmould, topped by an embattled parapet that peaks over the door. A canted bay window extending across bays 4 and 5 is one storey high, with large four-pane sashes and hoodmolds, and a blank shield on the parapet matching the porch. Bays 1 and 2 have later rectangular bay windows with casements that have transoms and flat roofs. The first floor features blocks to the projecting sills of tall paired sashes with margin-glazed, Tudor-arched lights; bay 3 has a later casement, and windows in bays 3 and 4 have hoodmoulds, set beneath gables with applied studding and plain bargeboards. Aligned brick stacks are situated at the left end, near the centre of the ridge, and behind the ridge on the right. A 20th-century addition to the left of the main range incorporates a four-light transom window and a parapet matching the main porch. The right return side shows a gabled main range with windows similar to those at the front. A recessed wing on the right features a one-storey rectangular bay window with a shield beneath a matching parapet.

The interior of No. 1 includes main ground-floor rooms with floral-tile insets in cast-iron fireplaces within Gothic-style marble surrounds; the left room has a later mahogany overmantel. Both bay windows contain stained-glass transom lights, and the rooms have moulded plaster ceilings designed with a geometric pattern incorporating fleur-de-lys and fruiting vines. The one-storey addition features an Edwardian chimneypiece and dado panelling, reportedly from a former detached billiard room at the rear of the house. The first floor has a patent, Edwardian bath/shower compartment and mid-19th century cast-iron/tile fireplaces within marble surrounds. No. 3 has part-glazed, panelled inner porch doors with Tudor arched lights and a painted glass Gothick fanlight. A front-right room contains an enriched cornice, and a room in the rear wing has a moulded plaster ceiling decorated with clustered heart motifs. The staircase and landing feature a balustrade of cusped, cast-iron panels with a wooden handrail, and Tudor arches off the landing are lit by a painted-glass lantern. Highfield House, as it was once known, was first occupied by James Pritchard, followed by Samuel Lamb in 1832, and subsequently by members of the Marsland family from 1847. The house is depicted in an established setting on the 1848 Tithe Map, occupying a fashionable, elevated position overlooking the Mersey Valley.