Ashley House

Ashley House is a house, now offices, dating from around 1800 with later additions. It is constructed of ashlar magnesian limestone with a stone slate roof. The main building is two storeys and three bays wide, with a one-storey, one-bay side wing to each side and one-bay screen walls. Behind the main building is a parallel range and a lean-to coach-house/stable against the left return, and a raised wing to the rear right.

The front has a plinth and stone steps leading to a central six-panel door, which features a fanlight with radial glazing bars within an ashlar sandstone doorcase. This doorcase has Doric columns, a plain frieze, and a triangular pediment. Flanking bays on each floor have projecting stone sills supporting tripartite sash windows with 4, 12, and 4 panes under flat arches. The central first-floor sash has glazing bars in a matching opening. A dentilled and modillioned wooden cornice forms the gutter; shaped kneelers, ashlar gable copings, and rendered end stacks are present. The side bays each have a sash window with glazing bars beneath a flat arch and an ashlar-coped parapet. The screen walls contain flat-arched doorways, with the left doorway being blind.

The rear parallel range has tripartite windows to each floor. The raised wing to the left has been added in the 19th century. On the left return, the coach-house/stable has an infilled basket-arched carriage entrance, a six-pane casement window, and a 20th-century part-glazed door, all beneath a flat arch, and an oculus above the window. The right return’s side wing has a panelled door and fanlight with radial glazing bars in a round-arched recess beneath a gable with a tall apex stack.

Inside, the hall has an inner doorway with a fanlight similar to the front entrance. Original features include six-panel doors, a staircase with turned balusters and a wreathed and ramped handrail, and fireplaces in the front rooms with iron baskets in wooden surrounds and dentilled cornices. One front room fireplace is flanked by round-arched recesses with reeded archivolts. The rear-left room (dining room) contains a panelled dado with a Vitruvian scroll rail and an iron basket in a marbled frame within a Neo-Classical wooden surround; opposite this is a round-arched recess with side pilasters, an archivolt, and a semi-dome with radial astragals.