Highfield House

Highfield House

A house built in 1863 by the architects Bellamy and Hardy. It is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with ashlar dressings and a slate roof.

The house is square in plan. The ground floor is arranged around a central square stairwell and hallway, accessed from an entrance corridor containing two scallop-headed niches and ornate coving. Principal rooms open off this central hall, with service rooms and a subsidiary staircase positioned to the north side. The first floor follows a similar arrangement, with bedrooms opening off the central stairwell. The subsidiary staircase extends to a garret.

The building is designed in the Gothic revival style. The principal south elevation features rectangular windows under moulded labels, with oriel windows at first floor level containing Gothic tracery. A moulded string course separates the two storeys. The westernmost bay terminates in a gable facing south, adjacent to a projecting two-storey gabled porch with angle buttresses and a doorway beneath a four-centred arch. A gable dormer is positioned to the east of the porch. The west elevation is dominated by a projecting gabled bay containing a two-storey bay window. South of this projection is a projecting flue with a small window and a date stone at first floor level. North of the bay is a wooden conservatory and a small wooden oriel window. As with the south elevation, first floor windows have Gothic tracery while ground floor windows are rectangular under labels, with a moulded string course dividing the storeys. The north and east elevations are less decorative, lacking a string course and featuring plain rectangular fenestration. The east elevation contains an external flue pierced by windows at both ground and first floor levels. The roof is steeply pitched with a glazed wooden lantern topped by an ornate iron weathervane.

The interior is arranged around a large central hallway. The open well staircase features quarter pace landings and iron balusters. Beneath the stairs is a brick and limestone fireplace in an oak surround with a neo-Classical overmantel. Entrances to the main reception rooms are marked by deep wooden doorcases with open-topped segmental pediments. At the top of the stairs, two arched doorways flank a niche.

Principal rooms on the west side feature plasterwork ceilings and picture rails. The central room contains a brick fireplace in a neo-Classical marble surround with a scrolled plaster sopraporter depicting three putti. The principal room to the east is wainscoted and contains a fireplace with stone surround, its mantel shelf supported by half arch consoles resting on Purbeck marble colonettes. A window positioned above the fireplace indicates that this fireplace vents to a flue to the side rather than the rear. Upper floor rooms are coved with plasterwork ceilings. Bedrooms at the south-east and south-west corners contain fireplaces directly beneath windows that pierce external flues, indicating that these fireplaces also vent to the side of the window.