The Dingle

The Dingle is a substantial Arts and Crafts house designed in 1904 by the architect Edgar Wood for the Reverend William Blackshaw. It is built of local, roughly coursed rubble stone under stone slate roofs, with leaded casement windows throughout.

Plan and General Arrangement

The house has a compact right-angle plan with the main entrance set diagonally where the two wings meet, bisecting the inner angle. The entrance vestibule opens into a central hall with three main rooms leading off it and a staircase rising to the attic floor. Originally there were four first-floor bedrooms, a bathroom and separate water closet; these have since been reconfigured as three bedrooms, a larger bathroom and water closet. The attic floor contains two bedrooms and a storage room for boxes. There is a small cellar and a basement room with separate external access. A small, single-storey service range projects to the north.

Exterior

The house stands on a site that falls away to the west. Consequently, on the west side overlooking Woodland Place, the house presents four storeys including attic and basement, while on the east side facing Prospect Road it appears as three storeys including the attic. The main ridgeline runs north to south, with a large wing projecting westward under a slightly lower ridgeline. All elevations are asymmetric. Windows vary in size and have white-painted timber frames with small-pane leaded glazing and occasional opening casements. They are set directly into the walls without formed stone surrounds.

The main entrance doorway occupies a narrow, diagonally-placed wall topped by a small gable (gablet) that bisects the inner north-west angle. It is approached by a wide flight of shallow stone steps leading to a square raised terrace bounded by rubble stone walls with stone coping and taller square piers flanking the steps. Two further steps at the rear of the terrace, the second set into the wall, lead to the door itself. The large round-headed plank door has a narrow round-headed window set centrally above the letterbox with a brass surround, filled with Art Nouveau style stained and leaded glass. The round doorknob is accompanied by a tall rectangular brass fingerplate. To each side of the door, contained within the frame, is a small narrow light with small-pane leaded glazing and a stone sill beneath. Above the doorway hangs a small iron lantern, and just beneath the eaves at first-floor level is a three-light rectangular window. The gablet rises above eaves level, overlapping the adjacent pitched roofs. The left-hand west-facing elevation has a two-light window at ground-floor level (originally smaller), while the right-hand north-facing elevation has two small windows adjacent to the doorway, positioned one above the other at ground and first-floor levels. At mid-point, rising from the roof pitch, is a tall rectangular chimney stack.

The west gable wall of the wing features a centrally placed two-storey canted bay with white-painted timber mullioned windows on both ground and first floors, capped by a flat roof. The area between ground and first floors is now tile-hung, originally rubble stone. To the left on the ground floor is a small window, and lower to the right is a round-headed doorway with a plank door giving access to the basement room. In the apex of the gable is a small attic window. Attached to the south side, continuing the line of the wall face, is the retaining end wall of the south terrace.

The south elevation has a pitched roof on the left and a gable on the right with a wide two-storey canted bay and an offset stack at the apex; the pitch on the east side rises higher up the stack. Because of the falling ground, the ground floor is raised on a terrace. This narrow rectangular terrace has rubble stone retaining walls that rise to form low bounding walls with stone coping, with a flight of steps descending to the garden. At ground-floor level is a long five-light window with, to the right, a doorway and adjoining two-light window. The plank door has decorative iron strap hinges and a finger-latch. At first-floor level is a four-light window directly beneath the eaves and a three-light window above the doorway and adjacent window. At the right-hand end, the two-storey canted bay has a pyramidal roof that aligns with the east pitch of the gable, with five-light windows on both ground and first floors.

The east elevation features a central stair-bay that rises through the eaves level, terminating in a gabled dormer. It has a two-light window on the ground floor, a three-light window at half-landing level, and a three-light window at attic level. The ground and first-floor windows to either side are irregularly placed and sized.

The north gable wall has a large rectangular stack offset and rising on the left-hand side of the gable apex. There is a small three-light attic window and a similar first-floor window set towards the right-hand side, adjacent to a small single-light window. The ground floor is abutted by the single-storey service range.

The single-storey service range has a pitched roof and runs north to south. On the east side is a small flat-roofed kitchen extension at the left-hand end with small-pane leaded windows similar to the originals. To its immediate right is a doorway with a rectangular overlight. At midpoint in the rubble stone wall is a two-light window. The west side has a small single-light window and an adjacent small two-light window at the right-hand end.

Interior

The interior retains many original features, notably the doors and staircase, which are painted white. Windows have deep timber lintels and sills of small square red tiles. The entrance vestibule has a large beam over the doorway. The room is fitted with half-height vertical reed-panelling painted white, incorporating shallow projecting shelves to each side of the door and a corner bench with a shaped support in the right-hand angle. The floor is tiled with small square red tiles. The inner doorway is round-headed with double doors and a small narrow light to each side. The side lights and a row of four small lights in the doors have Art Nouveau style stained and leaded glass. The doors have large Art Nouveau brass fingerplates that together form a heart-like shape.

The vestibule opens into a rectangular hall with timber joists running across its width. It has an original chimneypiece with canted jambs and an elongated, tapering Art Nouveau chimney-hood with four iron studs and a simple projecting mantelpiece. To the right of the vestibule doorway is a narrow round-headed cloakroom doorway with a simple architrave and a door with a small heart-shaped light and a tall rectangular brass fingerplate.

The dog-leg staircase opens off the hall through a round-headed archway and rises with half-landings to the attic floor. It has a vertical reed-panelled solid timber balustrade with a shaped handrail and plain square-cut newel posts, painted white. The staircase has been boxed in on the first-floor landing with a round-headed doorway, but retains the original balustrade. At ground-floor level beneath the staircase is a round-headed doorway with vertical reed-panelling and a rectangular brass fingerplate. A flight of stone steps leads down to the cellar.

The doorways off the hall into a sitting room (originally the kitchen) and dining room (originally the nursery) have simple moulded architraves and vertical reed-panelled doors. A large round-headed doorway opens into the large sitting room, originally the dining room. The double doors each have a small narrow light with Art Nouveau style stained and leaded glass and share large Art Nouveau brass fingerplates together forming a shield-like shape. The room has a large bressummer beam running its length to form an inglenook; the chimneypiece is a replacement.

The original doors on the upper floors have simple moulded architraves and vertical reed-panelled doors. The master bedroom above the large sitting room also has a large bressummer beam running its length to form an inglenook, with the room entered through a doorway opening into it; the original chimneypiece is no longer present.

Subsidiary Items

On the west side of the house is a tall rubble stone wall built with a convex curve beside the gable wall of the wing to form a terrace area beside the house. The wall acts as a retaining wall to the land on which the house stands and also as a garden wall to the south-west garden area, which is much lower than the house level. A flight of curved stone steps with rubble stone walls links the terrace and the garden, and a lower garden wall continues to the south and returns to the south-west corner.

In the south-west corner is a small triangular garden room with a curved wall between the two boundary walls. It has battlemented walls (largely covered in ivy) with stone coping. The west, street side of the room is formed by a continuation of the rubble stone boundary wall. It has a shallow curved oriel window supported on two rubble stone corbels, with three lights with stone mullions and wooden frames.

The west boundary wall runs along the east side of Woodland Place for the length of the site, reducing in height towards the north as the land rises. There is a recent large opening in the wall towards the south end giving access into the south-west lower garden. To the left of this, the wall rises in a triangular pediment over the entrance doorway to the house. The round-headed doorway has a large plank door with iron studs and a circular drop handle. At eye level is a small central iron grille, above which THE DINGLE is written in applied iron letters.

The extent of the listing has been defined using Section 1(5A) of the Act such that the demolished section of the north-west boundary wall and its extension along Woodland Place are excluded. The mapping includes terrace and garden walls mentioned in the subsidiary items, but as these are not shown on modern mapping, their mapped locations are approximate, taken from historic mapping.