8, Castle Park

No. 8, Castle Park is a house dating from the mid-18th century, with a raising of the structure in 1854. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar with ashlar dressings and a slate roof, featuring gable chimney stacks. The house follows a double-depth plan, incorporating a rear wing on the left which could have been altered from what was previously a stable. The building is three storeys high above a cellar, with two wide bays. It has chamfered quoins, nosed sill courses on the first and second floors, and a moulded eaves cornice. The windows are large 16-pane sashes, and the doorway has a recessed door with fielded panels, including a concave-sided hollow diamond in the lower half, an upper glazed panel, and an overlight with glazing bars arranged in a pointed oval pattern. The top storey appears to be offset approximately 50cm to the left due to the raising of the party walls to accommodate the extra storey, overlapping the gable of No. 10, which is only two storeys high, and being overlapped in turn by the front wall of No. 6. The interior features reeded architraves to doorways. There is a dogleg open-string staircase with stick balusters and a mahogany handrail up to the first floor, with a rib-vaulted ceiling at landing level. An earlier staircase, which connects from the first to the second floor, exists but is not continuous with the first staircase, and was perhaps relocated upstairs during the raising of the house, featuring two slender turned balusters per tread. Historical records, including title deeds, contain a plan and notes detailing the demolition of a portion of the original house and the addition of the extra height in November 1854. An earlier deed from 1753 confirms a mortgage linked to Thomas Mackrel, a barber and peruke maker, who inherited a share of “one messuage or dwelling house, one maltkiln, one stable, etc."