No 3 The Close

An Arts and Crafts style house by by W Alexander Harvey and W Graham Wicks, built between 1911-1913.

MATERIALS: the house is constructed primarily of red brick with some pale stone detailing and clay tiled roofs, with a timber framed porch.

PLAN: The house is rectangular on plan, with flanking pierced screen walls.

EXTERIOR: No 3 is two-storey; there is a two-storey gabled timber framed porch, housing the main entrance, which is placed off centre to the principal façade. The gable and first floor of the porch are both jettied, and the first-floor features drop finial decorations. A large central window fronts the porch. To the left of the porch is a tall, external chimney stack, with coupled star section shafts and dentil detail. This left-hand bay of the house is unfenestrated, in contrast to the right-hand bay which features a variety of window sizes. On the ground floor, there are four unevenly spaced windows underneath segmental brick arches; the window closest to the porch is notably wider than the remainder. Also, to the ground floor, there is a small, pale stone engraved with the initials W.W., a possible reference to the first names of the two architects. Above on the first floor, there are also four windows, with that closest to the porch the largest in both width and depth. All the windows have stone cills.

At the rear of the house, there is a protruding central gabled bay, mirroring the protruding porch at the front of the property. This bay has a single window at both ground floor and first floor level; the ground floor window is wider and under a segmental brick arch. Within the return to the righthand side of the bay is a brick chimney stack with coupled star section shafts, a brick string course and dentil detail. The bay to the right-hand side of the property has a window to the first floor and a single width entrance to the ground floor, with flanking glazing. To the left-hand side of the property are two additional bays, one of which is single storey with a catslide roof and a gabled dormer window above. This is connected to the final bay of the property with a partially external chimney stack with coupled star section stacks, a brick string course and dentil detail.

INTERIOR: the principal door of the property leads to a small, internal lobby, with a secondary timber door leading to the hallway of the houses. From the hallway, a timber staircase with surviving balustrade leads to the first floor. There are surviving elements of historic architrave in the hallway of the house and leading into the other ground floor rooms. The ground floor doors appear to have been replaced with modern fire doors.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the house is connected to the adjacent houses by brick screen walls. The walls are built into the fabric of the adjacent buildings and are topped with hipped clay tiles. The walls have unevenly spaced arches.