Four Gables And Attached Contemporary Garden Wall Including That Part Within Woodside

Detached house with attached garden wall, dated 1900, with later twentieth-century alterations and additions. Built for Dr John Henry Whitham; architect unknown.

The house is constructed of narrow hand-made bricks with sandstone dressings, rough-cast upper walls, slate roof, and brick stacks. It follows a roughly square plan with a canted bay to the west, main entrance and porch adjoining the south side, and main rooms positioned to the west and south. Service rooms occupy the east side, with a small wing extending southward from the south-east corner.

The main (west) elevation displays three storeys and two bays with two symmetrical shaped gables, flanked by tall brick stacks. The ground floor is constructed of narrow hand-made bricks in stretcher bond with occasional double rows of headers, with sandstone dressings. The left-hand bay contains a six-light stone mullioned window with a wide central mullion. The right-hand bay features a wide stone canted bay window with a moulded stone band above a recessed base and two-light casements to each plane. Ground-floor windows have square-set leaded glazing. The first and second floors are rough-cast, with tile and wider brick coping to the gables. The left-hand bay has a two-storey five-light canted oriel window with a single-light casement to the right of the first-floor window. The right-hand bay contains a similar two-storey five-light canted bay window with a single-light casement to the left of the first-floor window. All windows feature timber frames and diagonally-set leaded glazing. Between the two bays, between the first and second-floor windows, are carved stone flower motifs. Cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers run between the bays. A flat-roofed single-storey brick porch is recessed to the right-hand side against the south elevation. The stone door surround has a carved door lintel incorporating the initials J H W and the date 1900 in the manner of a seventeenth-century West Yorkshire vernacular door lintel. The original door has two lozenge-shaped fielded panels beneath a light with patterned leaded glazing. The secondary elevations are two storeys in height and irregular in design, with two original differing shaped gables to the south (garden) elevation. A modern two-storey gable and rebuilt single-storey wing occupy the south-east corner. A tall six-light stair window with geometric leaded glazing lights the east elevation.

The interior features a large entrance hall with red tiled floor, brick fireplace, moulded cornice, and decorative ceiling plasterwork. An open arcade leads to the main staircase, which is open-string with two square-turned balusters per tread, shaped cheekpieces, moulded mahogany handrail, and newel post with acorn finial. The drawing room and dining room are linked by a wide opening. Both rooms have oak floorboards, moulded cornices, and decorative ceiling plasterwork. The drawing room contains a fireplace with an altered surround; the dining room has a built-in panelled cupboard. The original kitchen (now laundry room) contains panelled cupboards and oak floorboards. A secondary staircase between the first and second floors has round-turned balusters, moulded mahogany handrail, and newel post with ball finial. Three original bedrooms on the first floor have picture rails and art nouveau styled fireplaces. Two original bedrooms on the second floor contain art nouveau styled fireplaces. An original linen cupboard on the second floor has five-panelled doors. Throughout the house are original five-panelled doors with architraves and original casement ironmongery. The scullery has been altered and extended. A small cellar with stone steps is present.

The garden wall comprises narrow hand-made bricks with tile and larger brick coping. It runs approximately 2.5 metres in height along the north boundary with a short curved return to an entrance gateway on the west side, continues along the eastern boundary (the length of the original garden), and returns along the original southern boundary. A potting shed with shaped gables stands at the southern end (the southern part of the original garden no longer belongs to Four Gables). A lower wall of the same bricks with stone coping encloses a service yard to the east side of the house, with a wall running between the north boundary wall and the house, featuring two tall square gate piers with low timber gates. A lean-to brick outbuilding with two stacks stands against the east boundary wall, adjoined by a lean-to glasshouse retaining a brick base but with an aluminium frame.

Four Gables is of special architectural interest as a house designed in the Arts and Crafts style, a movement which began in England in the late nineteenth century and sought to re-establish the skills of craftsmen and artists threatened by industrial mass production. The movement was most eloquently expressed in private house design, with particular emphasis placed on the form and detailing of principal elevations and references to traditional or vernacular building traditions. This is clearly evident at Four Gables, which, despite different phases of alteration and extension, retains both its distinctive external architectural character and its interior spatial qualities, plan form, and fixtures and fittings. The house was originally planned to sit within a generous garden (now subdivided) and is linked to its supporting landscape by a substantial brick enclosure wall.