Astley House With Adjoining Screen Wall And Coach House

Astley House with Adjoining Screen Wall and Coach House

A small country house with adjoining coach house and screen wall, located in Astley. The main house dates from around 1830 and is probably a remodelling of a late 18th-century house. It is constructed of rendered brick on a painted sandstone ashlar plinth, with a plain tile roof to the rear wing. The building is designed in a Greek Revival style in the form of a temple.

The house is arranged on a T-plan with three storeys and a two-storey rear wing. The ground floor features channelled rustication with a plinth and cill band to the second floor. The first and second floors are decorated with a giant Corinthian order comprising paired unfluted pilasters supporting a full entablature with moulded dentil cornice and coped blocking course that slopes up to a central one-bay section of balustrade. Integral rendered brick end stacks rise from the building. The facade is arranged in 1:1:1 bays with a central break. Windows are glazing bar sashes, those on the first floor featuring rectangular-panelled aprons, with the central first-floor window having a triangular pediment on consoles above. The central entrance is a half-glazed door with two lower flush panels and a rectangular overlight, sheltered by a Doric porch with paired fluted columns and unfluted pilasters behind, supporting a full entablature with blocking course. The gable ends are treated as temple fronts with paired pilasters to the first and second floors supporting an entablature and triangular pediment.

A timber-framed conservatory adjoins the left side, with a brick plinth and gabled roof curved at the eaves. It comprises 3 by 5 bays, each with pierced cast-iron spandrels and three segmental-headed lights, and a central pair of half-glazed doors in the gable end to the front. Two-storey service ranges to the rear have dentil brick eaves cornices, brick ridge stacks, and boxed glazing bar sashes with painted stone cills and lintels.

The adjoining screen wall and coach house are rendered brick with a slate roof. The screen wall features a plinth, frieze, moulded cornice and blocking course arranged in three bays, with a pair of segmental-arched openings with wrought-iron balustrading. A projecting centre section with stepped blocking course leads to a gateway with a plain pedimented hood above. The right-hand arch had collapsed at the time of survey in January 1987.

The two-storey coach house has a plinth, entablature, and triangular pedimented gables to the front and back, with an integral rendered brick end stack to the front and rendered ridge stack to the rear. The front features a pair of Doric columns in antis (unfluted at present but showing evidence of former fluting) and a central round-arched panel with moulded architrave, continuous cill band, rectangular panelled apron beneath, and a raised half-H panel above. The three-bay left-hand return front has a pair of tall round-arched panels. The rear has tripartite panels divided by pilaster strips. The right-hand return front has a pair of large boarded doors and other openings, but was partly collapsed at the time of survey.

The interior of the house retains largely complete early 19th-century fittings and decoration. The entrance hall has an acanthus-enriched dentil cornice and central ceiling rose. A rectangular-well staircase with winders rises two floors in three flights. The flights to the first floor appear to have been altered in the later 19th century with closed string turned balusters and square newel posts, but the early 19th-century upper flights remain intact, comprising an open string, shaped brackets with guttae and moulded tread ends, stick balusters (two per tread), columnar newel posts, and a ramped handrail.

The left-hand ground-floor room has a dado rail with plain plaster panels below and plaster panels above with reeded borders, and a plaster cornice with bead and reel enrichment. The ceiling is enriched plaster with husk borders and wreaths at the corners. The fireplace has fluted pilasters, a frieze with central urn, husk swags and paterae, and a cornice with bead and reel enrichment.

The right-hand ground-floor room has a fireplace with fluted pilasters with masks above, an enriched surround and frieze with a medallion in the centre. Six-panelled doors feature throughout the house with reeded architraves and paterae at the corners. Double doors open to the right-hand ground-floor room.