The Isle

The Isle is a small country house, probably dating from the late 17th century, with significant alterations and additions carried out in 1749 (marked by a datestone), around 1836, and further work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The building is constructed of red brick with some grey sandstone ashlar dressings and features hipped slate roofs. It has a rectangular plan with recessed ends that were filled in after 1836, and further later additions to the east and west elevations. The house rises three storeys.

The south (entrance) front displays a moulded stone cornice and blocking course. There are pairs of symmetrically-placed external brick lateral stacks to the front with pitched-roofed links to the attic, a brick ridge stack off-centre to the right, two brick stacks off-centre to the left, and an integral brick lateral stack to the rear. The elevation is divided into 1:2:1:1:1:2 bays, with the left-hand bay being an addition of around 1900. Stacks sit between the second and third and between the fifth and sixth bays from the right. Windows are 4-pane boxed sashes (narrow to the right-hand end) with stone cills and gauged-brick heads. The left-hand addition windows have segmental heads. An enclosed central Doric porch, dating from around 1900, features cable-fluted columns supporting an entablature, moulded cornice, triangular pediment, and blocking course to the sides. The door has three raised and fielded panels, a rectangular overlight, and moulded architrave.

The right-hand return front shows 1:2:1 bays with a central break and a stone cill band to the second floor. A large post-1911 one-storey addition of 3 by 5 bays contains sashes with pilasters, frieze and cornice, and a central break with a pair of half-glazed doors.

The rear elevation displays 1:2:1:2:1 bays. Gables rise over the second and third and fifth and sixth bays, with a taller central break flanked by scrolls, moulded cornice, blocking course and globe finials. A restored datestone above the central second-floor window is inscribed "S H E 1749". Central paired half-glazed doors occupy the ground floor. First-floor glazing bar sashes appear in the second and third bays from the right.

Interior features are predominantly mid-18th century. The central entrance hall contains an 18th-century L-plan oak staircase rising to the second floor, with an open string, cut brackets, moulded nosings, column-on-vase balusters (two per tread), Tuscan columnar newel posts, and a ramped moulded handrail wreathed with quarter splay to the foot newel. Raised and fielded dado panelling with a ramped rail lines the hall, with matching dado panelling to the first-floor landing.

The right-hand ground-floor front room features 18th-century raised and fielded oak panelling with moulded dado rail and cornice, pilaster strips with raised and fielded panelling flanking a circa 1840 marble fireplace. Window shutters and a door with six raised and fielded panels and fanlight complete the room.

The right-hand ground-floor rear room contains an 18th-century fireplace with marble slip, lugged architrave, frieze with carved scrollwork and a central urn, and a cornice with carved egg and dart ornament. An enriched plaster cornice runs throughout, and window shutters with raised and fielded panels are fitted.

The right-hand front bedroom retains 17th-century-type panelling with carved frieze, a fireplace with 18th-century lugged architrave and flanking pilasters with raised and fielded panels, and a 17th-century panelled overmantel with lozenges.

The left-hand front bedroom contains an early to mid-18th-century fireplace with a lugged wooden architrave with fluted key and 18th-century pictorial ceramic tiles in the reveals.

The right-hand rear bedroom displays 17th-century-type panelling with moulded cornice and a fireplace with lugged architrave, panel over, and flanking pilasters with raised and fielded panels. Eighteenth-century doors with raised and fielded panels occur throughout the house.

The house contains a collection of drawings and photographs, including a drawing dated 1836 showing the building before the recessed ends were filled in and a photograph of circa 1911 showing the south porch but not the garden room to the east.

The Isle has been the home of the Sandford family since the 16th century. Thomas Farnolls Pritchard of Shrewsbury is said to have carried out some work here, and if so was probably responsible for much of the mid-18th-century work.