Sunnycroft

Sunnycroft

This red brick house on Holyhead Road in Wellington was built in two phases, in 1880 and 1899, for J.G. Wackrill, founder of the Shropshire Brewery. It was probably designed and erected by the local builder Alfred Roper and Sons.

The brick is laid in English garden wall bond with three rows of stretchers to one of headers, with stone and polychrome brick dressings and a slate roof. The two building phases are close in style, though the bricks differ slightly in size and colour.

The garden front features two bays dating from the 1880 build. At ground floor left is a canted bay with a hipped roof; other windows are four-pane sashes with stone lintels rising to a central point. First-floor windows have pointed relieving arches of alternating yellow and black bricks that rise into the gables above each bay. To the left is a slightly projecting bay added in 1899, broadly similar in design with French windows to the ground floor and paired sashes with plate glass windows to the first floor. A cast iron verandah with glazed roof runs along this front at ground floor level. The entrance front dates entirely from the 1899 additions and has a projecting gabled wing at right. At left is the blank flank of the dining room wing with one small window and a projecting chimney. In the re-entrant angle stands a polygonal bay with the front door set above a flight of stone steps, with fanlight and stone surround. Above at first-floor level is a projecting oriel supporting an octagonal turret with panelled sides and a hipped roof topped with a weather vane.

The kitchen court to the north contains a single-storey range housing a cold store, granary, slaughterhouse and boiler house. Joined at the north are a vine house and kennels with iron railings.

The 1899 additions involved extensive interior refitting using high-quality materials and richly decorated finishes, mostly chosen from manufacturers' catalogues. The porch and entrance hall feature polychromatic encaustic floor tiles by Maws & Co. The staircase hall has an open-well staircase with Jacobean-style newels and balustrade of mahogany and pine, a panelled coved ceiling and stained glass skylight. The billiard room retains its panelled ceiling and gasolier above the table, now converted to electricity. The drawing room has a fitted upholstered bench or 'cosy corner' with mirror-backed shelves. The kitchen, larder, pantry and scullery retain their original cupboards and shelves. Original panelled doors, marble fireplaces, radiators and wall-mounted gas lights (converted to electricity) survive throughout. Panelled ceilings and original wallpapers and Lyncrusta paper below the dado remain in several rooms.

The original 1880 house was a relatively modest villa with two bays to the garden front, comprising at ground floor level the rooms now forming the drawing room, smoke room, morning room, staircase hall, kitchen, pantry and larder. In the 1890s it was purchased by Mary Jane Slaney, widow of a wine and spirit merchant. In 1899 she extended the house by adding the dining room, billiard room, entrance hall and porch, together with a gentlemen's cloakroom and lavatory and store adjacent to the kitchen. No architect is recorded; the plan was likely agreed with Alfred Roper and Sons. In 1912 the house was bought by Mrs Slaney's brother-in-law, J.V.T. Lander, a solicitor, and remained in the family until 1997. Mr Lander enlarged the small estate's land-holding; parts were compulsorily purchased after the Second World War, but the house itself suffered few alterations. In the late 1940s washbasins were fitted in the bedrooms and mains electricity arrived in 1947, when the former gas lights were converted.