Holly Bank

SD 60 SE 1480/2/10007

LEIGH ORCHARD LANE Holly Bank II

Convent, formerly 2 dwellings. 1873, with minor alterations c. 1900. Built for James Hayes, industrialist and owner of Victoria Mills, Westleigh. Red brick with blue brick banding and painted dressings. Welsh slate roof with tall mid-slope chimney stacks. Gothic Revival style. T-plan, with double depth central range and single bay service range to rear. FRONT (south) ELEVATION: 2 storeys with attics, 4 bays, with steeply-pitched gables to the end bays which have canted bay windows with shallow parapets. Above, tripartite windows with pointed brick arched heads to the lights below hood moulds with label stops. Subdividing the opening are slender shafts with foliage capitals. Cill and window head bands in ashlar and blue brick. 2 light attic windows in gable apex with semi-circular heads incorporating quatrefoil lights. Plain barge boards. 2 inner bays with tripartite ground floor shallow bay windows, beneath hipped roofs, above, coupled lights with pointed arched heads, and gabled dormers with barge boards and finials. All windows are undivided sashes. REAR ELEVATION has gabled end bays and a central lower 2-storey service range with hipped roof. INTERIOR: not inspected, but known to retain a little-altered plan form, retaining the detailing of the original 2-unit design, but now with interconnecting doors. The house retains original panelled doors, moulded architraves and skirtings, and much decorative and ornamental plasterwork, particularly that within the stairwell of the eastern part. The staircase has turned balusters and a moulded handrail, and is set within a stairwell lit by a rectangular sky light incorporating decorative stained glass. Of particular note are the fireplaces to the ground floor rooms, with elaborate wooden surrounds and associated decorative plasterwork.

Listing NGR: SD6628501173