8 Silverdale Road, Oxton

This late 19th-century semi-detached house is now divided into four flats. The ground-floor flat contains an exceptional visionary environment created by the Outsider artist Ron Gittins between 1986 and 2019. The interiors of the upper-floor flats are excluded from the listing.

Construction and Materials

The house is built of orange brick laid in English garden wall bond with stone dressings and orange concrete roof tiles.

Layout

The house stands set back on the north side of Silverdale Road, forming the left half of a pair of semi-detached houses. It rises two storeys with an attic floor and basement. Originally a full-height staircase was located centrally to the rear, but this has been partially removed.

The ground-floor flat, known as Ron's Place, has a full-depth entrance hall with rooms opening off each side. The front left reception room was Ron Gittins's workroom, the front right his living room. Beyond to the left are a bathroom and rear bedroom, and to the right a kitchen with a small outshot. Two flats occupy the first floor and one the attic floor, accessed by a later external staircase to the rear. These upper flats and the external staircase are not of special interest.

Exterior

Front Elevation

The front elevation has three bays with a gabled attic to the left. Features include a brick plinth, first-floor stone sill band (painted), moulded-brick stringcourses incorporating hoodmoulds on the ground and first floors, timber bargeboards to the gable, and a brick modillion eaves cornice. A brick corbelled stack is shared with the mirror-image paired house. Most windows retain timber plate-glass horned sashes.

The central front doorway to Ron's Place has an overlight with stone jambs and imposts featuring pennant and pointed arch relief carvings, and a segmental-arched brick head beneath the stringcourse hoodmould. The three-panelled wooden door is covered in hessian painted with almost indiscernible pale greyish symbols.

On the ground floor, the left bay (Ron's workroom) has a canted bay window with stone sills and lintels featuring ogee relief carvings over three windows. Below the central window is a bricked-up cellar window. The right bay (Ron's living room) has paired segmental-arched windows with stringcourse hoodmoulds and stone sill and impost blocks.

The first floor has similar paired segmental-arched windows in the left and right bays—those to the left have replaced uPVC sash glazing (not of special interest)—and a single central window. The attic window in the gable has a segmental brick head, stone sill and impost blocks (painted), and replaced uPVC glazing (not of special interest). A small dormer window has a replacement uPVC frame (not of special interest).

Side Elevation

The side elevation has two slightly projecting fireplace shafts (stacks removed), a plinth at the right corner wrapping round from the front, and a brick modillion eaves cornice. The ground floor has a central segmental-arched window with a timber two-over-two pane horned sash (Ron's bathroom). Two first-floor windows and a gabled dormer window have replaced uPVC frames (not of special interest). A later external iron staircase with outer railings (not of special interest) is fixed to the left side, rising and wrapping around to upper-floor landings at the rear accessing the upper flats.

Rear Elevation

The rear elevation is plain with a corbelled brick stack to the left (shared) and irregular fenestration. All windows have stone sills and segmental-arched brick heads except the attic window directly under the eaves, which has a square head.

On the ground floor is a boarded-up doorway with a lower kitchen window to the left (Ron's kitchen) and paired taller windows to the right (Ron's bedroom) with two-over-two pane horned sashes. Immediately left of the kitchen window, abutting the boundary wall, is a small brick outshot with a lean-to roof of concrete tiles, a segmental-arched doorway, and a bricked-up side window.

The external staircase (not of special interest) accesses two inserted uPVC doors for the first-floor flats and a similar uPVC door to the attic flat, all altered from window openings (the uPVC doors not of special interest). The first floor has a two-over-two horned-sash window; remaining upper windows have uPVC frames (not of special interest).

Interior

The ground floor contains the visionary environment created by Ron Gittins. Outsider artists like Ron work outside mainstream art world influences, usually with no formal training and often using non-traditional materials. Their work demonstrates clarity of personal vision engaging powerful imagination and single-mindedness, often presenting as compulsive creation of highly individual and compelling immersive spaces.

Ron's Place (Ground-Floor Flat)

Entrance Lobby

The front door opens into a small lobby with a timber moulded and glazed inner screen featuring a door with two panes of textured glazing and a panel beneath. Both door faces are scumble-painted brown, the architrave and screen painted cream. The ceiling has a modillion cornice with applied painted material corner segments and star shape around a central fruit ceiling rose. The right wall is textured and painted abstractly in blues, oranges and pinks with overdrawn dark lines. The left wall paint is flaking with traces of oranges and blues, dark lines low down and white over-sketching including figures close to the ceiling.

Entrance Hall

The long entrance hall walls are painted with an Egyptian tomb theme. At dado level, the side walls and front of the boxed-in foot of the former house staircase are painted yellow with various Egyptian figures and an upper border of blue hieroglyphs. A central dark blue band features Egyptian images in dark blue-black lines, including a Sphinx to the right and Anubis to the left. Above is a white frieze framed with narrow red lines featuring colourful hieroglyphs and a wider yellow band with cream and brown hieroglyphs.

On the rear wall next to the boxed-in section is a full-height painting of a seated Cleopatra (glamorously channelling Elizabeth Taylor) wearing a white dress, wide colourful collar necklace and golden headdress, holding an ivy branch against a blue background. On the side wall to her left stands a male figure wearing a shendyt (loin cloth), a hedjet (the white crown of upper Egypt) and the false beard of a pharaoh, against a blue-green background.

The floorboards are painted with a diamond pattern of pinks with blue spots at the corners and a frame of rectangles and squares of red, blue and yellow. Skirting boards of differing heights are painted cream. The ceiling is subdivided by a corbelled, depressed arch. In front of the arch is a moulded cornice with a rectangle of painted material tacked to the ceiling with four groups of tacks along the centre. The hall widens slightly on the left beyond the arch, with a moulded cornice to the ceiling.

On the left are a large doorway to the front reception room (Ron's workroom) and two lower doorways beyond the arch (to the bathroom and Ron's bedroom). On the right, beyond the arch, is a similar large doorway to the front reception room (Ron's living room) and a lower doorway to the kitchen (door removed). All have cream-painted moulded architraves and four-panelled doors except the kitchen. To the right of the living room door, wall paintings are overwritten with chalked telephone numbers.

Left Front Reception Room (Ron's Workroom)

This room has a Greek theme and is dominated by a huge hand-moulded concrete Minotaur's head fireplace in the centre of the outer side wall. The three-dimensional horned head is painted in realistic colours with a grate set inside the open mouth. A red textured background to the head overlaps wall paintings.

The walls have a moulded picture rail and enriched cornice, with moulded architraves to the door and bay window, all painted cream. The frieze is painted light blue with painted grisaille busts of Greek philosophers set at regular intervals on the picture rail. The lower wall is painted terracotta mostly with grisaille Greek figures, though a male figure to the right of the fireplace wears a red toga and yellow wreath. The inner wall, right of the doorway, has a large sheet with the outline of a figure on a horse (possibly William of Orange) tacked to it. Much original plaster in the front bay has been removed due to a former leak.

Right Front Reception Room (Ron's Living Room)

This room has a Roman theme with images derived from frescoes at Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum. The chimneybreast in the centre of the outer side wall features a huge hand-moulded concrete lion's head fireplace, snarling with an open mouth (containing the grate) and prominent fangs, possibly inspired by the zoomorphic fireplaces at the mid-15th to mid-16th century Villa Della Torre in Fumane, Italy. It is painted with a bronze effect and has glass shards for eyes.

The walls have a moulded picture rail (painted black), enriched cornice (painted gold), deep skirting board (scumble-painted blue) and moulded architraves (scumble-painted bluey-green). The black-painted frieze features coloured figures and animals taken from ancient friezes. Three walls are painted red with painted festoons hanging from the picture rail.

The inner side wall has a large horizontal rectangular painting of Neptune and Amymone taken from a fresco in the Villa Carmiano in Stabiae, with the doorway in the right corner. On each side of the fireplace and on the wall left of the doorway are painted panels of ancient Roman figurative scenes. The front wall is painted in a purple veined marble effect with a black vertical rectangular panel on each side of the window containing a grisaille figure painting. The floorboards are painted with an indistinct pattern of small spots, possibly evoking decorative pebble floors. The ceiling is entirely painted with a heroic celestial scene featuring a Roman warrior, perhaps Horatius.

Bathroom

The narrow bathroom left of the hall has an aquatic theme with walls and ceiling painted with different types of fish and other aquatic animals. The lower walls feature sea creatures including an octopus and squid, flat fish and hammerhead shark. The upper walls feature freshwater fish including pike and brown trout, and the ceiling has other waterside creatures including a frog and dragonflies.

Left Rear Room (Ron's Bedroom)

This room has a naval theme. In the centre of the outer side wall is a hand-moulded concrete mantelpiece with salmon jambs featuring open-mouthed heads at their bases. The mantelpiece is pink scumble-painted with inset concrete cheek tiles painted blue and a cast-iron grate. The room has an enriched cornice and moulded architraves (all painted cream) and pink-painted walls with a pale blue frieze.

The frieze has painted roundels of famous seafarers' busts and ships at regular intervals. The fireplace wall has an oval portrait over the mantelpiece of Lady Hamilton (believed to be a portrait of Josie, a traveller girl Ron knew) in an elaborate painted frame. Flanking the fireplace are two rectangular portraits in painted frames. To the left is a gentleman wearing uniform based on that of a Vice Admiral of the Royalist French Naval Fleet 1789-1794. To the right is English Naval Commander Lord Nelson (understood to be copied from a pub sign).

The wall left of the doorway has a large horizontal rectangular painting of the Bay of Naples in a painted frame. The inner side wall has a large horizontal rectangular scene of two Viking ships in a painted frame, with the doorway in the right corner. To each side of the window is a painted oval panel—left is dark pink with the outline of a figure, right is a portrait of a blond-haired woman set in a painted frame. The ceiling is entirely painted using a variety of colours in a partly abstract and partly figurative scene including two men in Roman uniforms and a female figurehead.

Kitchen

The right rear kitchen descends two steps and has a painted floor of red, black and white diamonds. In the centre of the outer side wall is a fireplace of hand-moulded concrete in the general form of a historic Roman or Middle Eastern bread oven, embellished with engaged columns and relief embellishments including zig-zags and Maltese crosses. The moulded overmantel has a central seal of the Order of the Knights Templar with niches to each side containing a Knight Templar to the left and a Knight of Malta to the right. The fireplace is flanked by two built-in timber cupboards painted cream.

Upper-Floor Flats

The interiors of the upper-floor flats have been altered and are not of special interest.