St Elizabeth House

St Elizabeth House

A house built in 1896 by the architect Maurice Hunter, commissioned by George Herbert Strutt for John Hunter. The building is constructed of regularly-coursed squared gritstone with ashlar gritstone dressings and has graded slate roofs.

The house is roughly oriented north-east to south-west and comprises two storeys with attic rooms and a two-cell basement. The plan is rectangular with an L-shaped extension to the north-east. There are three axial stacks and a further stack to the front-left bay.

The principal front faces south-east and is of three bays defined by gables with kneelers and ball finials. Off-centre in the central bay is a square porch with balustrading above and a timber-panelled door; the remainder of the ground floor bay protrudes and has a crenelated parapet. The left-hand bay has a stepped buttress rising to a corbel supporting a canted oriel window with decorative tracery panels and a crenelated parapet at first-floor level. The first floor windows have hood moulds, and within the gable ends are triple-slots with a drip mould above.

On the south-east elevation there is a crenulated canted bay-window at ground floor level, and an oriel of the same design as that on the main elevation at first-floor level. Within the gable is a three-light window with mullions and transoms. The north-west elevation has a canted bay-window to the right and a square bay-window in the centre, both with crenelated parapets. Off-centre in the central bay at attic level is a single gable with kneelers and a three-light window. To the left of the gable are two 20th-century rooflights. There is a single entrance with steps in the left-hand bay. All windows to the main house have mullions and transoms with metal or timber casements, probably 1940s replacements.

The extension to the north-east steps down to two storeys from the main building and then to a single storey, which has a later 20th-century uPVC conservatory attached to the south-east elevation, a structure shown on historic Ordnance Survey maps.

The house is entered through the porch on the south-east elevation into a vestibule partitioned from the entrance hallway by a panelled oak screen with coloured patterned-glass panels and a central door. A rooflight above the first part of the entrance hall leads through an elliptical archway to the main hall, from where all ground-floor rooms can be accessed.

The principal feature of the hallway is a grand open stair constructed in oak with panelled spandrel framing, including an understairs cupboard. It has a curved, panelled quarter-landing at ground level, decoratively-carved newel posts with finials, a carved baluster, and egg-and-dart detailing. The principal rooms off the hallway are a dining room and drawing room. The dining room has a large north-west-facing bay window, and the south-west-facing windows in the drawing room are filled with stained glass depicting Saints, probably dating to the late 1940s.

The main staircase leads to a gallery landing with a large mullion-and-transom window with coloured glass including heraldic crests on the south-east side overlooking the porch roof; this may date to the 19th century. The landing has a moulded cornice, framed panels to the walls, and deep skirting boards. Off the landing are five rooms, and the attic storey, located on the north-west side of the house, has further rooms within the roofspace. These have recently, in 2020, been subdivided with stud walls.