Number 57 With Gatepiers To Front Garden

Number 57 with gatepiers to front garden is a house dating to 1854, possibly designed by Walter Scott. It is built with ashlar facing and has a Welsh slate roof. Constructed in a picturesque asymmetrical Jacobean style, the house boasts rich detailing. The design includes a central entrance hall with principal rooms on either side. A recessed porch features Mannerist Ionic shafts and brackets that support an entablature ornamented with strapwork decoration, flanking a segmental archway. A right-hand bay is advanced beneath a Dutch gable, displaying a stepped mullioned window to the ground floor, and a mullioned window above with a broken pediment. A lower Dutch gable sits over the entrance. The left-hand bay faces a side garden and is characterized by a square bay window with elaborately carved mullions, panels in the entablature, and a castellated parapet with ball finials. A Dutch gable to the rear elevation displays the date 1854 and the initials W.H. within a cartouche, above a squared bay window. End wall stacks are present. The gate piers are panelled, with shallow pyramidal copings. The house was originally part of the development surrounding Birkenhead Park, laid out by Joseph Paxton between 1844 and 1847. It is of group value based on its contribution to the historic character of the area.