Oakley

This is a house, built around 1870, and originally commissioned for Henry Theodore Gaddum. It is constructed of squared rubble sandstone with ashlar sandstone dressings, featuring coped gables with moulded kneelers and tall, slender stone stacks with oversailing caps. The roof is slate, with alternating bands of pointed and squared slates. The house is designed in a restrained Victorian Gothic style, arranged around a central staircase. The asymmetrical, linear plan consists of two storeys with attics, and spans six bays by two.

The front elevation faces the street, with a projecting gabled entrance porch to the right, featuring a shouldered arched doorway, a ribbed vaulted roof, and a moulded surround to the inner door. Above this is a canted first-floor oriel with a crenellated parapet and flanking slender pinnacles, surmounted by a single attic window within a steeply-pitched gable with a finial. To the left is a three-bay range with tall sash windows to the ground floor and single and coupled sashes above, all beneath cambered heads. The façade incorporates sill bands and a moulded storey band. Two gabled dormers feature coupled sashes. A two-bay service crosswing is set further back to the left. The end bay to the right has a ground floor bay and a shaped gablet above the first-floor sashes. A contemporary timber conservatory is located at the right-hand end.

The garden elevation includes a canted, two-storey corner bay to the left, with a principal pier extending upwards to support a gabled pinnacle incorporating a gargoyle. Further to the right is a canted bay with a balcony and pierced parapet above. A two-light first-floor window sits above, with quatrefoil heads below a blind pointed arch, which incorporates the initials ‘H.G.’

The interior remains largely unaltered, showcasing high-quality original joinery including six-panelled doors within moulded architraves—some with engaged colonnettes—deep moulded skirtings, sash windows, and French doors. The plasterwork is elaborate, with pierced cornice ornamentation. The main staircase features turned newels with vase and pendant finials, turned balusters on a pierced plinth, and a moulded handrail. The stairwell has a boarded, ribbed, and partially glazed waggon roof.

The house was part of a planned development of substantial houses, subject to conditions imposed by the Earl of Stamford. It represents a substantial, well-detailed, and largely complete example of mid-Victorian Gothic domestic architecture in its original setting.