Wells House And Range Adjoining To Rear

Wells House and the adjoining range to the rear is a house and stable/store-house located on Spa Well Lane in West Cowick. The house dates from the late 18th century to early 19th century, with later 19th-century alterations, including a new roof. The stables/store-house, which has origins from the early 19th century, was built in the late 19th century and has had 20th-century modifications. The buildings are constructed of brick and topped with Welsh slate roofs.

The house features a double-depth plan with a central entrance hall and two rooms on the east front, and it forms the northeast side of a courtyard that was part of a former brewery. It is two storeys high with an attic and consists of three symmetrical bays. The exterior has a rendered plinth that imitates ashlar stonework. The entrance includes a six-fielded-panel door with a late 19th-century stained glass overlight, framed by a doorcase with acanthus leaf and lion-head brackets supporting a corniced hood. The windows are 16-pane sashes set in flush wooden architraves with sills and channelled stucco flat arches featuring fluted keys, with a central 12-pane sash on the first floor in a similar style. The eaves are stepped, and there are truncated ashlar kneelers at the gables, along with late 19th-century end stacks. The right side of the house has hung and sliding sashes on both floors, plus a single attic sash, and there is a partly-blocked attic door on the left side.

The range at the rear has two low storeys and three openings on the first floor. It features three 20th-century ground-floor windows and two first-floor 20th-century windows, along with steps leading to a first-floor board door on the right. The south side of the range has 20th-century windows beneath the original arched openings. Inside, the house contains an open well staircase with a ramped and wreathed handrail and plain balusters, along with six-fielded-panel doors in architraves, although the interior has not been fully investigated. The building was formerly the residence of the brewery master and served as an inn known as The Malt Shovel, linked to a late 18th-century to early 19th-century brewery to the south and the later 19th-century Crown Brewery to the west.