Rossington Bridge House And Attached Wall With Railings

Rossington Bridge House and Attached Wall with Railings

A coaching inn, now a house and disused nursing home, dating from the mid and late 18th century with an early 19th-century addition and mid-19th-century alterations. The building is constructed of red brick in English and Flemish bonds, with stone slate eaves courses and pantile roofs, partly covered with Welsh slate.

The building comprises 2 storeys arranged as a 3-bay centre with a lower 1-bay addition on the left (featuring a rear outshut) and a low 2-storey addition of 1778 on the right with an early 19th-century rear wing.

The mid-18th-century centre section features a central 6-panel door set within a Doric-columned wooden porch with triglyphs and a light cornice. Flanking this are early-19th-century canted-bay windows with sashes of 8, 12 and 8 panes, set beneath hipped roofs with shaped Welsh slates. On the first floor, projecting stone sills support sashes with glazing bars beneath flat brick arches; one of these windows reportedly bears the inscription 'John Turner 1778'. The building is finished with shaped kneelers and ashlar gable copings, while brick end stacks feature bands and tabling.

The late-18th-century addition on the left displays a projecting stone sill to a 16-pane sash within a flush wooden architrave beneath a flat brick arch, with a similar sash containing glazing bars on the first floor. The gable and stack match those of the centre block. The addition on the right has an entrance to the left with a 6-panel door and overlight featuring radial glazing bars within a corniced wooden doorcase, and a bay window to the right matching the centre block design. The first-floor sashes have glazing bars, and the gable details match those already described. In front of the right-hand part of the main range and right wing stands a low brick wall with chamfered stone coping and cast-iron railings terminating in arrow-head finials.

The interior contains a high-quality mid-18th-century staircase with turned balusters and square panelled newel posts. In the early 19th century, this staircase was moved to the right-hand wing and replaced by a stick baluster stair in its original position, which still survives. The upper floor retains three high-quality 18th-century fireplaces with painted moulded surrounds and cast iron hob grates. The interior has also preserved almost all of its original panel doors, some still fitted with their original L hinges.

The property was part of the Doncaster Corporation estate until the 1830s. In 1764 the Corporation approved a plan by William Rickard for a house at Rossington Bridge, and in 1783 issued instructions to prepare a plan for rebuilding the old part. The inn was advertised in 1789 as 'now rebuilt'. Originally called Rossington Bridge Inn, it changed its name to the Corporation Arms sometime before closing in 1850.