Folds Cottages And Attached Outbuildings

Folds Cottages and attached outbuildings are a house, now divided into two unoccupied cottages, dating back to around 1750. They were built by Mr. Platt for Lord Scarborough and are situated partially within the parish of Tickhill.

The building is constructed of ashlar and coursed rubble magnesian limestone, with Westmoreland slate, Welsh slate, and pantile roofing. It has a T-shaped plan, comprising a two-storey, three-bay main house with one-storey, one-bay side pavilions in a Palladian style. The rear angles of the main range have been filled in with two-storey outshuts, which are not considered to be of particular architectural interest. The pavilions are linked by walls to a one-storey, three-bay range of outbuildings facing onto the rear garden.

The west front of the main house displays a plinth and rusticated ground floor. A raised central panel has steps leading to a door, framed by a flat arch and a modillioned cornice. The outer bays have boarded-up windows with flat arches, the voussoirs of which are aligned with the courses of the stone. A narrower window is located on the right. The first floor features a deep band linked to a sill band by plain window aprons. A central Ionic Venetian window is set within a moulded sill, pilasters, and pulvinated frieze. The windows in the outer bays have moulded sills, shouldered architraves, pulvinated friezes and cornices. A cornice and blocking course complete the hipped roof. The side pavilions are set back and each feature rusticated quoins, a square-faced surround with a keystone to a semi-domed niche, eaves cornices, blocking courses, hipped roofs, and ridge stacks. The rear wing has quoined rubble walling and round-headed windows on each floor, an eaves band and cornice.

The outbuildings to the rear left and right are attached by coped walls with gateways. Each has a central bay projecting forward, featuring a door and adjoining windows set in raised ashlar surrounds, with similar doorways in the outer bays, all beneath a hipped roof. A later brick lean-to is incorporated into the rear-right outbuilding, and is not considered to be of significant interest.

Internally, the cottages were in poor condition at the time of survey. The central imperial staircase has been divided by a partition wall, although remains of the original wrought-iron handrail are visible. A ground-floor room on the left side contains a fireplace with a crinoidal limestone surround, a fluted keystone on the lintel, and a scroll-topped plaster overmantel. Remnants of plaster wall panels and an enriched cornice with acanthus corner motifs remain on the ceiling, though much of the ceiling has collapsed. A subdivided single room on the first floor retains a fragment of original plain coving.

It is believed that the building was initially constructed for Lord Scarborough's chaplain, although the staircase and upper room suggest a more grand occasional use. Estate steward John Billam’s accounts indicate that in 1750 stone was being conveyed for the construction of the Folds, and that Mr. Platt received £50 as payment. Mr. Platt is likely George Platt of Rotherham, and the building is noteworthy as it predates James Paine’s involvement with the Sandbeck estate.