Greycourt

Greycourt is a house dating to circa 1792, with restoration work undertaken circa 1987. It was built for Mr Richard Postlethwaite. The house is constructed of sandstone ashlar, brought to a smoother face on the front elevation, with a slate roof and gable stacks to the left and right. It follows a double-depth plan.

The main facade features three widely spaced bays and incorporates a basement that, due to the significant cross-fall of the ground, includes a wide, lintelled coach entrance on the right-hand side. Horizontal mouldings run above the basement and a decorative sill band is present on the first floor, with a plain sill band on the second floor. The eaves have a cornice and a blocking course. The windows are 12- or 9-pane sashes, all with moulded architraves. The first-floor windows have a plain cornice supported on capitals rising from the architraves, while the ground-floor windows have slightly wider plain cornices carried on fluted consoles. A doorway on the left has a similar cornice and a door with raised and fielded panels above an overlight. A terrace with cast-iron stick balusters and 'turned' standards topped with ball finials leads to the doorway, which is accessed from the Church Steps.

The rear elevation includes a bay with tripartite sash windows and a porch with a door of nine raised and fielded panels. Inside, the house was restored in the late 1980s, with partition walls removed that had been installed when the house was in multiple occupation. The entrance hall contains a mahogany dogleg staircase with Tuscan columns as newels, stick balusters, and a ramped handrail. The main living room on the ground floor at the front contains a marble fireplace in a Grecian style; this was originally located in an upstairs bedroom and may have been supplied by Websters of Kendal.

The house was built for Richard Postlethwaite, who also rebuilt Gardyner’s Charity almshouses, which stood adjacent to the house but have since been demolished. A 1978 publication suggested that the design of the house and almshouses may have been by Thomas Harrison.