Ruston House

Ruston House is a house dating from the 1810s, with a section extending back to the 18th century. It was originally built for Robert Clifford, a surgeon. The front facade is constructed of grey brick in Flemish bond, topped with a Welsh slate roof. The earlier rear section is of red brick with yellow brick dressings, featuring a Welsh slate and pantile roof. The house is L-shaped, utilizing a double-depth plan with a two-room central entrance hall facing south, and a preceding three-room section to the rear, accompanied by two coach houses to the rear right.

The front of the house is two storeys and three bays, exhibiting a symmetrical design. A stucco plinth supports an elegant, projecting Doric porch with tapered octagonal columns, moulded capitals, and an entablature featuring triglyphs and a modillioned cornice. The porch’s round-arched opening contains a recessed, half-glazed, fielded-panel door within a reeded architrave, alongside side lights above reeded sills and panels, and a large two-pane fanlight. Full-height bows flank the central bay, each containing unequal 15-pane sashes with sills and channelled stucco flat arches. A first-floor sill band runs across the front, and 12-pane first-floor sashes are set in similar surrounds to the bows and central bay. A wooden gutter is positioned beneath paired brackets with roundel ornamentation and the roof is hipped, featuring side wall stacks.

The right return, rear section, is two storeys with three bays, the central bay projecting forward. A 15-pane ground-floor sash is set to the left, beneath a segmental arch within a blocked former opening. Segmental-arched carriage entrances are centrally and to the right bays, the former featuring a pair of board doors. The first floor showcases two single-course bands of yellow brick, above a 12-pane sash beneath a cambered arch; rectangular single yellow brick panels are present to the centre and right bays, all terminating in a stone-coped parapet.

The interior features an open-well staircase with a wreathed handrail, scrolled brackets, a column newel, and balusters. There is a moulded ceiling roundel in the entrance hall, along with a moulded cornice and frieze. The ground floor right room has a grey marble chimney-piece with pilasters and consoles, while the ground floor left room features a reeded cornice and a white marble chimney-piece with a keyed round arch. Six-beaded panel doors are set within reeded architraves with lion's head decoration to the hall and main front rooms. Ovolo-moulded ceiling beams are characteristic of the earlier rear section. The earlier rear section may represent a portion of the former residence of Robert Ruston, who died in 1783.