The Nook

The Nook is a house dating from around 1720-30, with an early 19th-century extension to the left and a bow window to the rear; the roof was re-tiled in the late 1960s. The front is of fine red brick in Flemish bond, with scored pointing, and a rendered lower section to the left extension. Painted sandstone ashlar dressings are used, along with a pantile roof.

The house has a double-depth plan, featuring a two-room central entrance hall on the east front, a narrow addition set back to the left, and another addition set back to the right, incorporating a bow window facing the west garden. It is two storeys high, with four bays, and a recessed fifth bay on the left side. A plinth with chamfered rustication is present, along with quoins. A flight of five stone steps leads to the entrance in the second bay, where a 6-faceted-panel door sits beneath a dentilled cornice and overlight with geometrical glazing, all within an original ashlar doorcase featuring an architrave and consoles carrying a moulded cornice and hood. 20-pane casements are set within original openings, featuring moulded ashlar sills and channelled wedge lintels with fluted keystones. A coped parapet tops the front, with end stacks.

The left extension has a segmental-headed board door and a first-floor sash window with margin lights. The west garden front has a round-headed stair window with a keyed rubbed-brick arch and later 19th-century glazing with margin lights, and a large stuccoed semicircular bow window (perhaps originally full-height) with a central 2-fold glazed door flanked by 20-pane sashes, sills beneath a bell-shaped canopy, a plain frieze, and a cornice.

Interior details include bolection panelling, moulded dado rails, and panelled ashlar chimney-pieces in the dining room on the ground floor right. One such chimney-piece is complete with a wave-moulded keystone, panelled overmantel, and fluted Doric pilasters carrying a full entablature with triglyphs and mutules, continued as a cornice around the room. A pair of round-headed fielded-panel doors are set within architraves with scrolled bracket keys. A contemporary first-floor bedroom right features fielded panelling, a similar chimney-piece and flanking Doric pilasters carrying an entablature with a pulvinated frieze and dentilled cornice, also continued around the room. A fine flying staircase incorporates a ramped and wreathed corniced handrail, column-on-urn balusters with square knops, a pronounced curtail step with a twist baluster newel, and a panelled section with fluted Doric pilasters and a pulvinated frieze supporting the open flight of moulded and panelled steps. Moulded plaster cornices are found in the hall and first-floor rooms, along with panelled window shutters and 6-fielded-panel doors in architraves throughout. A ribbed cornice with paterae features in the rear right drawing room, and a contemporary cornice is in the room above. It has been reported that the house once had a third storey and/or a panelled parapet. The Nook is a distinguished house in a prominent position, possessing good interior details.