St John'S Preparatory School And Attached Garden Wall

This is a mid to late 18th-century house, later refronted around 1820, and now serving as St John’s Preparatory School. It is constructed of stuccoed brick with ashlar dressings, and has a tiled roof behind a parapet. The house has a double-depth plan with a lower side wing and a rear wing. It is built in a Greek Revival style.

The two-storey elevation has a symmetrical four-window range, with an extra window to the left end which breaks back, and a lower projecting wing with a hipped roof. A top cornice is followed by a panelled parapet with a cornice and blocking course. The front door has an eared architrave and an overlight with margin lights, leading to a four-panel door with a nowy-headed lock plate and inverted-T slot. Ground floor windows have architraves, aprons with incised lines, and tripartite sashes with four-over-eight-over-four panes and margin lights. First-floor windows have architraves, friezes and pediments, with twelve-pane sashes. Upper-floor windows have sills and six-pane sashes. A four-bay colonnade to the ground floor features columns modelled on those of the Tower of the Winds in Athens, with a frieze bearing wreaths and a cornice with a blocking course. One side wing has a first-floor sill band and a two-light casement with small panes.

The rear of the building contains a single-storey service range with segmental-headed windows and entrances, along with windows, one of which is a four-light transomed pegged casement. A shallow full-height wing extends to the left, featuring a canted bay window, and to the right, a large twelve-light wooden-mullioned window is set within a large, blocked round-headed opening with a glazed lean-to.

Internally, windows have shutters. The hall incorporates encaustic tiles and a cornice. One room to the left has a rich cornice and ceiling rose, including a black fireplace with Tuscan columns and a 19th-century cast iron grate with colored tiles. A room to the right has a cornice, and an open-well stair to the rear left features a cut string, turned balusters (clustered in groups of four to the foot), moulded nosing to the treads. The landing has a door with egg-and-dart moulding to the panels.

An 18th-century garden wall extends to the rear from the right return of the building.