Cliffe House

Cliffe House

House, now used as a field centre. Built 1888–91 for S. Senior, a brewer. The building is constructed of ashlar on its principal elevations, with coursed squared stone and ashlar dressings to the remaining faces, and is roofed in Westmorland slate. It is a substantial two-storey structure with an attic storey and basement, arranged on a double-pile plan with three bays by three bays. A single-storey billiard room projects to the rear left, with a matching single-storey outbuilding range to the rear right.

The house features a chamfered plinth, moulded first-floor band and sill band throughout. Windows are of moulded mullion and transom design with coloured and painted glass to the overlights. The gables are timber-framed with moulded bressumers and barge boards. Three broad, tabled, multiple-flue stacks rise from the roof.

On the entrance front, a central entrance is reached by steps and comprises a wide panelled door with a traceried upper section, set in a billeted shouldered-arched architrave. Above the door is a similarly-arched two-light overlight with transomed side-lights, all sheltered by a swept leaded canopy. A three-light window is positioned above the entrance. The outer bays contain two-storey canted bay windows with traceried panels below the upper lights. The left bay has a corbelled, decoratively-banded stone roof below a corbelled gable, while the right bay is set directly below a smaller gable. The roof is hipped on the right.

On the right return, the central bay features a segmental-arched door and window below a tall three-light stair window with cusped upper lights below sexfoils, surmounted by a corbelled gable with a three-light attic window. The left bay has three-light windows, while the right contains a wide untransomed three-light window to the kitchen with a four-light window above. The outbuilding range on the right has three board doors with overlights and a two-light window to its left.

The left return has gabled outer bays with three-light windows. Between the left-hand bays is a swept-leaded-roofed bay window flanked by single-light windows. The billiard room on the left is constructed of painted stone and features an inserted door, a long skylight, and an end stack to its left. Its gable end contains two two-light windows and a corbelled gable.

The interior preserves most of its late 19th-century features of high quality. These include panelled birds-eye maple doors in fluted architraves on the ground and first floors, polished-stone fireplaces with iron grates and, in two first-floor rooms, decorative-tiled surrounds. Ground and first-floor window overlights are decorated with bird and flower-painted medallions. Coloured glass features in doors, side-panels and over-panels of the ground-floor cloakroom and first-floor bathrooms and water closets, all fitted with brown-decorated wall tiles.

The entrance lobby has a mosaic floor and side-walls painted with Highland scenes. The entrance hall features a four-centred archway with an elaborate frieze and cornice, repeated in the drawing room at the front left. The former dining room at the rear left has an inlaid floor border, panelled walls and an Adam-style wooden fireplace with an architraved over-panel. The dog-leg stone stair features a decorative iron balustrade with a moulded wooden handrail, lit by a fine coloured-glass window. It rises to a landing with panelled piers forming a two-bay arcade. Both stair and landing have floral friezes and elaborate light roundels. Decorative iron lanterns light the entrance hall and landing.

A green baize door provides access to the service area. The butler's pantry and kitchen retain wall-cupboards and drawers, with the pantry fitted with superior-quality timber. The pantry is accessed by a part-glazed door in a pedimented architrave and has tiled walls and two thicknesses of window. It formerly contained a safe which rose under water pressure from the basement into the wall cupboard.