No. 1 Argyle Road

No. 1 Argyle Road, Southport

A large house built between 1881 and 1885 in Italianate style, with early to mid-20th-century additions and alterations. It is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with painted stone dressings, a hipped slate roof, end chimney stacks, and deep bracketed eaves.

The building is two storeys with a raised ground floor over a basement and attics. It has a square plan with three bays, the main rooms grouped around a central stair hall. A single-storey scullery and an added single-storey church meeting room occupy the rear.

The main facade features stone steps leading up to a pillared central porch with panelled double doors. To the left is a 5-light deep bow window; to the right, a 2-light square bay window. The upper floor has windows arranged 2:1:2, with plate glass sashes throughout. The rear elevation shows a single-storey added bay projecting on the right, a large central 2-by-3-light stair window, a bathroom window of around 1930 on the left, and original paired sash windows on the right. A small 4-pane sash sits in an eaves dormer left of centre. The left and right returns have shallow projecting chimney stacks, an added glazed corridor on the left, and basement windows on the right.

Internally, a glazed carved wooden screen divides the lobby from the entrance hall, which contains an original fireplace and a straight flight of stone stairs with mahogany balustrade and brass torchere. The living and service rooms open off the hall. The half-landing is lit by a 6-light coloured glass window. The upper floor has a heated landing area and a doorway at the top of the stairs providing access to the service staircase, which leads to the ground-floor scullery and kitchen and up to the attic bedrooms. A vaulted cellar is reached from a flight of stone stairs behind the main staircase.

The house retains fine late 19th and early 20th-century original decoration in the three principal rooms on the ground and first floors. This includes painted and gilded Classical-style moulded plaster ceiling cornices, friezes and roses; ornate chimneypieces of carved wood and polished stone with mirrored overmantels; panelled doors, some decorated with stencilled Classical or Arts and Crafts motifs and original door furniture; silvered curtain rails and door fittings in the ground-floor reception room at the front left; coloured glass in leaded lights in doors, the stair window, and catch-lights; and wallpaper in oriental and William Morris styles. Important fittings include ornate brass Art Nouveau electroliers in the ground and first-floor rooms, furniture made by James Lamb of Manchester, and original fitted carpets. The first-floor bathroom, built around 1930 in the service area, is tiled throughout in white with grey, pink and black Greek-style decoration. The rear kitchen and scullery wing on the ground floor retains 1950s kitchen fittings and is reported to have been built over a large water storage tank. The ground-floor room at the rear left was extended as a church meeting room in the 1950s, with the deep moulded ceiling cornice replicated in the 4-window extension.

The house was built shortly after 1881 and by 1886 was occupied by Guy Fernandes, a brewer born in Sandal. Following the death of Mary Ellen Fernandes in 1950, it became the property of Nora Helen Bradburn, her companion. The house was sold to Frederick George Cloke of the Evangelical Church in 1952. In 2007 permission was given to convert the building into flats.