South Hayes

A pair of semi-detached houses, now operating as a nursing home, were built in 1783, with significant additions and alterations occurring later, including conversions and extensions in the 1980s and 1990s. The houses are constructed of red brick with stone dressings, and have a hipped slate roof partially concealed by a parapet. The roof features ridge and end stacks with oversailing detail and decorative pots.

The houses were originally designed as a single large villa, with service wings to the rear and entrances on the east and west facades, and a common, main facade facing south onto London Road. They are arranged with a single depth, back to back, and feature a central stairhall.

The south-facing principal elevation is almost symmetrical, with a bay to the off-centre right that projects slightly. The facade has three storeys and a basement, with seven windows (arranged 3:2:2) on the first floor. Stone detailing includes sills, a moulded cornice, and coping to the parapet. Ground-floor windows are 6/6 sashes; first-floor windows are 6/9 sashes; and second-floor windows are 3/3 sashes. All windows are set in plain reveals with sills and flat gauged brick arches, and many retain external blind boxes. Basement windows are 3/3 sashes, set within individual brick areas. A single-storey extension to the left of the ground floor has four 1/1 sashes.

The east elevation is three stories high and has three first-floor windows. The stone cornice continues from the principal elevation, and a sill band runs along the first floor. Windows on the first floor are 6/6 sashes; those on the second floor are 3/3 sashes, all with plain reveals, sills, and flat gauged brick arches. The left-hand window apertures on both floors are blind. Access is provided via a late 20th-century conservatory leading to a central entrance with paired three-panel doors, featuring raised and fielded upper panels, flush-beaded bottom panels, a pilaster doorcase with a pulvinated frieze and cornice, and an overlight with curved lattice pattern glazing bars. A later bay with mullion and transom windows with multiple panes of glass is also present. A two-storey service range to the right has 6/6 sashes.

The west elevation has been extensively altered with single, two and three-storey additions and features 6/6 and 8/8 sashes.

Internally, the houses have been re-ordered following conversion for use as a youth hostel, but original features remain, including ornate plasterwork, joinery such as panelled shutters to windows, six-panel doors with tooled architraves and fleurons to the corners, cornices, and two openwell staircases connecting the front and rear rooms, featuring stick balusters, carved tread ends, and wreathed handrails.

Historical records indicate that the south facade was symmetrical in 1886, with a 2:2:2 window arrangement. By 1926, a single window range had been added to the west return. The houses were known as South Hayes and Cornwall Lawn on an Ordnance Survey map from 1884.