Eight Detached Houses Forming The Childrens Homes At The Harris Orphanage

Eight detached houses form the children's homes at the Harris Orphanage, built between 1885 and 1888 by Benjamin Sykes of Garlick, Park, and Sykes for the trustees of E.R. Harris. These houses are arranged in two rows of four, north and south of a green, designed as "village homes" in the Vernacular Revival style. Constructed from Accrington red brick with sandstone bands and dressings, they feature slate roofs with red ridging tiles. While the houses vary slightly in plan and form, they resemble typical suburban middle-class semi-detached houses of the period. Architectural details include decorated gables—some with applied timber and others featuring diaper patterns of projecting headers—large wooden mullion and transom windows, some set in canted bays and others in hipped gableted dormers, with some having altered glazing. Tall Tudor-style chimneys add to their character. These homes represent an early example of the family-unit system for institutions, contrasting with the classification system used at the Preston Union Workhouse less than 20 years earlier.