Folds Cottage

Folds Cottage, now two unoccupied cottages with attached outbuildings, was built around 1750 for Lord Scarborough by Mr. Platt, as documented by T.W. Beastall. Constructed of ashlar and coursed rubble magnesian limestone, it features Westmorland slate, Welsh slate, and pantile roofs. The building is T-shaped, originally a two-storey, three-bay house with one-storey, one-bay side pavilions designed in a Palladian style. The rear angles of the main range are extended by two-storey outshuts (considered unremarkable), and the pavilions are linked by walls to a one-storey, three-bay outbuilding facing the rear garden.

The west front of the main house exhibits a plinth and rusticated ground floor. A raised central panel provides access via steps to a door framed by a flat arch and modillion cornice. The outer bays have boarded-up windows with flat-arched voussoirs aligned with the stonework, the window on the right being narrower. A deep band connects the window sills to a sill band, with a central Ionic Venetian window featuring a moulded sill, pilasters, and a pulvinated frieze. The outer windows have moulded sills, shouldered architraves, pulvinated friezes, and cornices, topped by a cornice and blocking course leading to a nipped roof. The side pavilions are set back and each features rusticated quoins, a square-faced surround with a keystone to a semi-domed niche, an eaves cornice, and a blocking course to a nipped roof with a ridge stack.

The rear of the house has quoined rubble walling and round-headed windows on each floor, extending to an eaves band and cornice. Rendered stacks are located at the eaves of the main range. A pair of outbuildings are attached to the rear left and right, connected by coped walls with gateways. The central bay of each outbuilding projects forward, incorporating a door and adjoining windows set in raised ashlar surrounds, with similar doorways to the outer bays, all under a nipped roof. The rear-right outbuilding includes a later brick lean-to, which is not considered to be of particular interest.

The interior, noted to be in poor condition during a resurvey, retains some original features. A central imperial staircase has been divided by a partition wall, with remnants of an original wrought-iron handrail remaining. A ground-floor room on the left contains a crinoidal limestone fireplace with a fluted keystone on the lintel, set beneath a scroll-topped plaster overmantel. Remaining plaster wall panels and an enriched cornice, largely collapsed and featuring acanthus motifs, are also present. On the first floor, a subdivided single room has fragments of original plain coving. Accounts from John Billam, Lord Scarborough’s Estate Steward, indicate that stone laying began in 1750 for what would become Folds Cottages, with £50 paid to Mr. Platt that year. Mr. Platt is believed to be George Platt of Rotherham. The building is of particular interest as it pre-dates James Paine's involvement with the Sandbeck estate.