Fairholme

House, built in 1848 by B and J Sykes for Mrs Shearburn. A later 19th-century extension was added to the rear.

The building is constructed in red brick laid in Flemish bond with tuck-pointing and ashlar dressings. The roof is Welsh slate, with a lead roof to the bay window and Yorkshire slate to the oriel windows. The style is Tudor Revival with Gothic details.

The plan is L-shaped, comprising a principal block with two rooms on the south garden front, an entrance hall to the rear right with a projecting entrance porch on the right return, and a service wing with single-room extension to the rear left.

The south front displays two storeys with an attic and three bays. A projecting gabled bay projects to the left, with a two-bay wing to the right. The left bay contains stone steps leading to a ground-floor wooden canted bay window with four full-length four-centred arch lights with glazing bars and moulded mullions in hollow-chamfered reveals, beneath a moulded string course, plain frieze and flat roof. The first floor features an oriel window with four-shaped brackets supporting a moulded base, three mullioned lights to the front and single lights to the sides, beneath a hipped roof. The wing to the right has cross windows with hollow-chamfered wood mullions in chamfered ashlar reveals with continuous hoodmould; the first floor carries two-light mullioned windows in similar reveals beneath coped gables with single slit lights in chamfered reveals. Coped gables are finished with octagonal finials and shaped kneelers. An axial stack and partly-projecting end stack to the right carry ashlar string courses and yellow ceramic chimney pots with castellated heads and various relief designs to the shafts.

The right (east) elevation forms a four-bay entrance front: a two-bay gabled range to the left with a projecting full-height entrance porch, and a two-bay rear wing set back to the right. Three stone steps lead to an entrance with a chamfered four-centred arch and hoodmould, above which sits a bowed oriel with a deep corbelled base, three mullioned lights, cornice and conical roof with ball finial, beneath a coped gable with finial and kneelers. A projecting gable-end stack to the left contains a two-light four-centred arch window in a deep chamfered reveal with hoodmould. The wing to the right has single-light and two-light mullioned windows in chamfered reveals, with continuous hoodmould to the ground floor and glazing bars to the first floor; an axial stack carries ornate chimney pots. The west elevation features single-light and two-light mullioned windows in similar reveals, with an inserted twelve-pane sash beneath a lintel and a similar window to the extension. A pair of slit windows beneath gables mirrors those on the south front, and a lateral stack is present.

The interior retains excellent original details. An open well staircase has a ramped handrail and arcaded balustrade with narrow pointed arches on octagonal shafts. The south-west room features moulded corbels carrying chamfered ribs to the ceiling, a pair of double-chamfered pointed arches to the bay window, and a large Gothic ashlar chimney-piece with tall embattled octagonal buttress shafts, trefoiled panels flanking the arched fireplace, and a quatrefoil frieze with cornice and brattished frieze above. The south-east room has moulded ribs to the ceiling and a Tudor-arched ashlar chimney-piece with trefoiled panels beneath an unusual window overmantel with a Tudor-arched reveal flanked by arched panels. An arcaded screen divides the upper hall, with coved and ribbed ceilings to the first floor. Doors are panelled within architraves and panelled reveals.

This is a fine example of a Victorian Gothic villa with excellent interior details, and forms part of a series of mid-19th-century suburban villas in various styles built at Snaith for the Shearburn family. Architect's drawings are in the owner's possession. J Sykes may be the architect Joseph Sykes, who worked in Batley in the mid to late 19th century. The chimney shafts were made by the Crigglestone Fireclay works of Wakefield.