Holly Bank

Holly Bank is a convent that was originally built as two dwellings in 1873, with minor alterations around 1900. It was constructed for James Hayes, an industrialist and owner of Victoria Mills in Westleigh. The building is made of red brick with blue brick banding and painted dressings, topped with a Welsh slate roof featuring tall mid-slope chimney stacks. It is designed in the Gothic Revival style and has a T-plan layout, consisting of a double depth central range and a single bay service range at the rear.

The front (south) elevation is two storeys high with attics and features four bays. The end bays have steeply-pitched gables and canted bay windows with shallow parapets. Above these windows are tripartite windows with pointed brick arched heads, hood moulds with label stops, and slender shafts with foliage capitals. The cill and window head bands are made of ashlar and blue brick. In the gable apex, there are two light attic windows with semi-circular heads that include quatrefoil lights, and the barge boards are plain. The two inner bays have tripartite shallow bay windows on the ground floor beneath hipped roofs, with coupled lights above that have pointed arched heads, and gabled dormers featuring barge boards and finials. All windows are undivided sashes.

The rear elevation has gabled end bays and a central lower two-storey service range with a hipped roof. Although the interior was not inspected, it is known to retain a little-altered plan form that reflects the original two-unit design, now with interconnecting doors. The house retains original panelled doors, moulded architraves and skirtings, and much decorative and ornamental plasterwork, especially in the stairwell of the eastern part. The staircase features turned balusters and a moulded handrail, and is located in a stairwell illuminated by a rectangular skylight with decorative stained glass. Notably, the ground floor rooms have fireplaces with elaborate wooden surrounds and associated decorative plasterwork.