Keeper's Cottage and associated Kennels, Orchard Lane, Cusworth

Keeper's Cottage and associated Kennels, Orchard Lane, Cusworth

A former keeper's cottage and kennels dating from the late 18th to early 19th century. The buildings are constructed of rendered limestone rubble with ashlar stone dressings, stone slate and buff pantile roofs, and brick chimney stacks.

The house is positioned as a deliberate terminating vista when viewed from the landscaped path passing between the upper and middle lakes, aligned with the eastern end of the middle lake. It follows a linear plan of three interconnecting rooms arranged over two storeys, with a cross passage between the south-east room and the two other rooms. This cross passage contains a staircase and has doorways opening onto both the north-east and south-west long elevations at ground floor. On the first floor, a small room (now a bathroom) occupies the north-east side of the cross passage. To the south-west of the house is a long rectangular garden, while to the north-east is a smaller rectangular yard containing two former kennels positioned in the outer corners, the north kennel having a small walled run on its north-west side. A later stable block containing two stalls stands between the kennels.

The exterior walls are rendered limestone rubble painted white, with a double-pitched roof incorporating four eaves courses of stone slates to both long elevations, buff pantiles above, and angled ridge stones. The gables feature shaped ashlar coping stones with moulded ashlar kneelers. Two brick gable stacks and a brick ridge stack rise on the north-west side of the cross passage.

The south-west elevation displays four bays over two storeys. The first, second and fourth bays contain ground-floor windows with slightly narrower windows above on the first floor. All windows have chamfered ashlar sills and rectangular, stepped and moulded hoodmoulds. The timber window frames have two mullions with three lights to the ground-floor windows and a central mullion with two lights to the first-floor windows, fitted with slender transom bars and one-over-one panes. The third bay contains an entrance doorway with two steps up and a matching hoodmould; the door has two lower panels and a single glazed panel in the upper half. Between this doorway and the fourth-bay window are two small rectangular windows at ground-floor level: the left is a 20th-century insertion lighting an understairs water closet, and the right is an enlarged ventilation window for the pantry (shown as a small aperture in a circa 1908 photograph).

The north-east elevation similarly comprises four bays over two storeys with fenestration matching the south-west elevation. Ground-floor windows occupy the first, third and fourth bays with slightly narrower windows above, all featuring chamfered ashlar sills, rectangular stepped and moulded hoodmoulds, and similar timber window frames. The second bay contains an entrance doorway with two steps up and hoodmould; this door has four panels. On the first floor is a small rectangular window with chamfered sill, hoodmould and timber frame containing a central mullion with two one-over-one pane lights.

The south-east gable wall displays two narrow rectangular first-floor windows with chamfered sills, rectangular stepped and moulded hoodmoulds, and timber frames with single one-over-one pane lights. The north-west gable wall is blank.

The interior features simple moulded architraves throughout most rooms, with four-panelled doors. The three ground-floor rooms have their doorways aligned enfilade on the north-east side of the building. The staircase comprises a timber balustrade with plain stick balusters, squared and chamfered newel posts, and squared handrails.

The south-east kitchen has a pantry against the inner cross wall, also with a four-panelled door and a stone-topped bench beneath the window. Both kitchen and pantry retain red quarry-tiled floors. The north-west ground-floor room features a dressed stone mantelpiece with stone chimneybreast above. The middle room and kitchen have chimney breasts with altered hearths. The south-east bedroom contains a blocked doorway in the inner cross wall that formerly connected to the small room over the cross passage, and a hearth stone against the outer south-east wall. The middle room has a chimneybreast with hearth stone, whilst the north-west bedroom has a hearth stone against the outer north-west wall.

The timber roof structure has been replaced at an unknown date with machine-sawn softwood common rafters and purlins.

The two former kennels in the outer yard corners are built of roughly coursed rendered rubblestone with mono-pitch stone slate roofs sloping inwards, topped with stone copings over both the sloping and higher outer walls. The east kennel has a 20th-century window opening in the south-west elevation that partially cuts across an earlier blocked doorway, and two further inserted windows in the south-east outer elevation; all openings are patched round with machine bricks. The north kennel has a high rubblestone wall surrounding a run on its north-west side, with a doorway in the south-west wall fitted with a plank door with strap hinges. The rubblestone wall continues between the north-east outer walls to form the boundary.

The boundary walls to the garden and yard are excluded from the listing, with the exception of the north-east wall associated with the kennels. The stable block between the former kennels is also excluded.