St Francis'S Home

St Francis's Home is a former orphanage and seminary associated with the Roman Catholic Church of St Francis of Assisi. It was established by the Reverend Canon Collis in 1869 and designed by S J Nicholl, likely funded by Mrs Lyne-Stephens of Lynsford Hall, Thetford, Norfolk. The buildings feature the dates 1879 and 1884 and are constructed of red brick with clay tile roofs that have decorative ridge cresting.

The eastern block is two storeys high and exhibits a balanced asymmetry in its design, with gabled outer bays. The left outer bay has a ground floor sash window topped by a canted oriel, with a jettied gable above. The right outer bay features a Tudor arched carriageway above which are two first-floor single-light casements flanking a small niche, possibly intended for a statue of St Francis, with the letters S F below. The central bay has three unevenly spaced gablets, with the left one positioned above the canted oriel and Tudor arched carriageway, and the two right ones above two-storey canted bays. The outer gables are adorned with heavy ogee-shaped bargeboards and mock timber framing with rose decoration.

The western block consists of two bays with two-storey canted bay windows. The second floor is decorated with fishscale tiles and features two tall French windows that open onto a balcony with a plain wood balustrade. The gable apices are jettied out to align with the balcony and include mock timber framing and simply moulded bargeboards. The windows throughout both sections have glazing bars and are mostly sash windows.