Ferham House

Ferham House is a large house, dating to approximately 1787, now used as offices for the Rotherham Health Authority. It is attributed to the architect John Platt, and later received 20th-century additions. Constructed of red brick in a Flemish bond with a 20th-century cement-tile roof, the house has three storeys and cellars, presenting a symmetrical facade with three bays by five. The front features a plinth. A porch shelters a wide, panelled door and fanlight with decorative glazing bars, flanked by narrow lights set between pilasters, with a pediment supported by two columns above. Sashes with glazing bars in the outer bays have projecting sills and architraves; a small, narrow sash is located to the far right. A first-floor band and sill band runs beneath a central round-arched panel containing an Ionic Venetian window, with a second-floor window featuring sill blocks and a swept-shouldered architrave over a six-pane sash. The outer first-floor windows have sashes with glazing bars in corniced architraves. Short second-floor windows are set within architraves with six-pane sashes, and a matching casement is present in the first bay. A modillioned eaves cornice tops the building, with a central single-bay open pediment. The roof is hipped, and stacks have been removed. An addition to the right, sympathetic to the main range, includes a curved wall with a corniced opening, now a casement, terminating in a hipped-roof outbuilding with round-arched recesses. The left return has a three-storey canted bay projection with a pedimented doorcase at the centre (now housing a sash). A shouldered architrave and segmental pediment frame the central first-floor window. The right return features a square projection with a tripartite window to the first floor and a Diocletian window to the second floor. Attached outbuildings are not of particular architectural interest. Inside, a cantilevered staircase has an iron balustrade. An arcaded panel decorates the first-floor landing, while a decorative plaster ceiling adorns the stairwell. A ground-floor room in the rear left exhibits an elaborate cornice and fine plaster ceiling depicting classical scenes. An adjacent room has semi-domed niches and plasterwork wall panels, including cherubs above the door. Platt’s journal, as referenced by Potts, documents the laying of vestibule and staircase floors at this house, forming the basis for its attribution to him, although his involvement often included working on designs by others.