Loversall Hall

Loversall Hall is a small country house, now used as offices, dating from 1811. It is constructed of ashlar magnesian limestone with Welsh slate roofs. The main front range is two storeys and consists of seven bays across by two bays deep. A parallel wing houses the main staircase and extends to lower two-storey service quarters, incorporating a cross-wing and attached outbuildings set around a rear yard. The symmetrical front features rectangular steps leading to a central tripartite doorway with panelled double doors and a four-pane overlight. This is flanked by eight-pane sashes, set between Doric half-columns and pilasters, with a plain frieze and cornice. A ground-floor sill band links the sashes with glazing bars beneath flat arches. The first floor has a band, a central tripartite window with sill blocks, sunken-panelled mullions and a light cornice, and other bays feature projecting sills to sashes similar to those on the ground floor. A modillioned eaves cornice and blocking course top the hipped roof, which has corniced ridge stacks on each side of the central bay. The left return is two bays as the front, with set-back cellar steps beneath a Venetian stair window with a fluted archivolt, and two rainwater heads dated '1811'. The right return is similar to the front but blind, and a wing set back on the right has an 18-pane treble sash on the left and an unequally-hung 15-pane sash; two sashes with glazing bars are on the first floor, and there are blind attic windows. The service wing has a round-headed stair window with a fluted archivolt on the left return. The cross-wing of the service quarters has tripartite windows on the right return, an Imperial fire insurance plaque on the rear (facing the yard), and a hipped roof. Inside, the entrance hall features corniced doorcases, a cast-iron firebasket with a marble surround, and a ceiling cornice with anthemion motifs. A front-left room has a fireplace with half columns and a cornice matching that of the hall. The front-right room contains a wooden fireplace and a cornice similar to the hall, with a ceiling feature. The rear dining room retains original buffet and shelving recesses with finely-ribbed wooden surrounds to round arches featuring lion's-head emblems, and it also has an iron firebasket in a marble surround. The stair hall contains a cantilevered stone staircase with a Regency-style iron balustrade and wooden handrail.