2 Highgate and 2A Lord Roberts Road, including associated former privy

This mid-18th-century town house was built around 1750 by William Middleton, with alterations made during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of brick with painted stone sills to the front elevation. The gables feature tumbled brickwork and kneelers. The roofs are covered in pantiles, though the front slope has been re-clad in Welsh slate.

Plan and Layout

The house follows an L-shaped plan and consists of a four-bay, two-storey main range with a service range to the rear. The principal elevation faces east onto Highgate. A Gothick privy stands in the rear garden.

Main Elevation (East-facing)

The four-bay main elevation has its lower nine brick courses forming a plain flush plinth. This plinth features a recessed stone-mounted boot scraper and an incised broad arrow benchmark to the right of the front door, and an iron cellar ventilator grille to the left.

The front entrance consists of a recessed six-panel timber door with a moulded three-light rectangular fanlight, set within a classical-style pedimented doorcase. Three Yorkstone steps lead up to the door. The fanlight contains stained glass panels, each with polychrome edging. The central panel displays a star, while the two side panels feature a central Christogram of IHS (representing Jesus) flanked by yellow-coloured English and Scottish symbols.

The doorcase projects prominently from the building and has a moulded and rebated shouldered architrave rising from a three-stepped plain plinth on each side, with a central tablet to the frieze, and a moulded cornice and pediment. A Royal Exchange Assurance fire insurance sign is attached to the wall above the pediment. A circular green Beverley and District Civic Society plaque commemorating Mary Wollstonecraft is fixed to the wall to the right of the front door.

The fenestration comprises a single window to the left of the doorway, two to the right, and four to the first floor. All are fitted with two-light Victorian sashes, painted stone sills, and gauged brick lintels.

Rear Elevation

At the rear, the projecting service range obscures the two northern bays of the building. The two exposed bays show a partially glazed six-panel rear door in the left bay, with a four-light sash window above. The door has a moulded three-light rectangular fanlight with stained glass oval panels containing a variety of diamond-set coloured patterns and motifs. Both floors of the right-hand bay are blind except for a blocked-up cellar window with a segmental brick arch.

Roof and Gables

The building is attached to other buildings on both sides, so only the upper parts of the gables are visible. Both ends of the gabled roof have raised tumbled brick verges terminating in moulded brick kneelers, with a brick chimney rising from each gable apex. The south gable has a two-light attic window partially obscured by the roof of 4 Highgate, and a similar window in the north gable is also partially obscured by the roof of an adjacent house.

The east slope of the roof is clad in Welsh slate and has two square-headed dormer windows fitted with four-light sashes, flat canopies, and glazed side panels. The guttering is carried on a moulded brick eaves course and has a modern rainwater downpipe. The western slope is clad in pantiles and drains into the roof guttering of the rear service range.

Service Range (2A Lord Roberts Road)

The rear two-storey service range projects at a right angle from the main range and is built in two phases. The first phase is original to the building, while the second phase appears to have been added shortly afterward, as it is built of very similar bricks.

The right-hand bay of the south elevation forms the first phase and has a single four-light sash window to each floor. The two left-hand bays form the second phase, are skewed slightly from the original alignment, and project further forward, with the junction between the phases marked by an offset. The elevation bows out slightly from the top and has one strap and two round tie-plates. The ground floor of the two later bays has modern fenestration with a bow window and a sash window, plus a half-glazed four-panel timber door. The first floor is lit by a pair of small four-light sash windows with exposed boxes.

The north elevation is blind except for a small four-light casement window situated slightly to the right of a stepped straight joint between the two phases. Two strap and two round tie-plates are positioned beneath the eaves. The ground floor is partially built against and obscured by the boundary wall of the adjacent property.

The gabled roof of the rear range is clad in pantiles and drained by a mixture of cast-iron and plastic rainwater goods. The junction between the two phases of the roof is marked by the projection of the raised tumbled brick verge of the former gable end of the first phase, with a rendered brick chimney stack rising from its apex. The height of the ridge drops slightly to the west. The southern slope of the roof has two four-light sash dormer windows with flat canopies.

The west gable has an asymmetrical elevation with two small modern windows lighting the ground floor, a single large sash to the right of the first floor, and a pair of small uPVC windows and two split-strap tie-plates within the apex of the gable.

Interior of Main House

The entrance hall spans the full width of the building and connects the front and rear doors. It has a stone tiled floor, painted timber dado panelling and picture rails, and is divided by an arch carried on moulded pilasters. Two doorways on either side of the front hall have moulded architraves and plain door reveals.

The doorway to the left enters a small reception room with a blocked canted corner chimney breast. The doorway to the right enters the former parlour or dining room. Both rooms have mid-18th-century painted dado panelling with window seats and panelled window shutters, and moulded cornices. The former parlour or dining room has a chimney breast against the north wall with a large late-19th-century polished-slate fireplace and a projecting cast-iron grate with floral tiled panels.

A wide depressed open archway in the west wall leads into a servery passageway. A four-panelled door in the rear wall of the passageway originally gave access to the kitchen in the service range, and a tall doorway with a segmented fanlight at the southern end of the passageway leads back into the hall opposite the staircase.

A mid-18th-century closed well staircase with an open string rises on the southern side of the rear of the hall. It has dado panelling and a ramped handrail carried on a balustrade of tapered turned balusters, with an end spiral terminating in a column newel post on a curtail step. A four-panel door located beneath the soffit of the upper flight opens onto a flight of brick steps leading down to a low barrel-vaulted basement spanning the southern bays of the house.

The first-floor landing is lined with dado panels and lit by a four-light sash window fitted with shutters and a window seat. A large contemporary low-relief ceiling rose is situated directly above the stairs. The landing gives access to three rooms: one occupying the northern two bays, and two smaller one-bay rooms to the south. Apart from a Victorian fire surround in the northern room and panelled window seats and window shutters, these rooms are unadorned. The southern room has a blocked corner chimney breast like the reception room below.

A short passageway on the northern side of the landing gives access to a blocked door into the rear range and to a steep dog-leg winder stair to the attic. This leads to a small landing within the slope of the roof with three doorways leading off it: one blocked into the rear range and two into the attic rooms. Each attic room is unadorned and built into the slope of the roof with sloping ceilings, a blocked chimney breast, and is lit by a casement window in the gable walls and an east-facing dormer window. A hatch above the landing allows access into the roof, which has a mixture of principal and common rafters, a bitumized felt lining, and secondary struts beneath the western slope of the roof.

Interior of Service Range (2A Lord Roberts Road)

The rear service range is entered by the doorway in the south wall, which leads into a small stair hall giving access to a utility room and a kitchen to the right, and the sitting room to the left, all with modern interiors. A steep plain staircase sandwiched between two walls rises to a small first-floor landing that gives access to the left to the first-floor master bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, and to the right down a few steps to a large bathroom with a walk-in cupboard. The bedroom has an offset four-light sash window in the west wall with a similar window seat to those in the main body of the house.

A stair rises from the landing to the attic floor, which has two bedrooms within the slope of the roof. The western bedroom has two exposed rafters made from reused notched floor beams.

Privy

A small rectangular-plan brick-built privy with a mono-pitched roof clad in pantiles is situated against the southern boundary wall separating 2 Highgate from 4 Highgate. The exact date is unclear, but given that it has a Gothick window, it could date from around 1770 to the 1820s.

The privy is entered by a serrated plank door in the north elevation and is lit by a Gothick-style multi-paned lancet window fitted with a small sliding Yorkshire sash. The interior has a red and black quarry tile floor, whitewashed walls lined by a plain muntin wainscot, and a timber-lined water closet syphon with lead pipes supported by an iron bar.