Ormonde Cottage Ormonde House

Ormonde House and Ormonde Cottage

A house, now divided into two dwellings, located on the north-west side of Kelvedon High Street. The building has 16th-century origins and was substantially altered during the 18th century.

The main structure is timber-framed and clad with red brick in Flemish bond, roofed with handmade red plain tiles. The principal south-east-facing elevation is a 6-bay range, with an internal stack at the left end and a late 16th-century axial stack near the right end. Behind this, four adjacent wings of various dates and spans extend to the rear, completing a rectangular plan, with end stacks in the two outer wings and an internal stack in the rear right corner of the second wing from the left. An early 19th-century ancillary range extends beyond the left wing, with an internal stack at its right end. This wing abuts Ormonde Lodge (to the left) and its first floor is occupied in association with that building. The ancillary range is 2 storeys high.

The main building is 2 storeys with cellar and attics. The façade features a 2:2:2 window range of 18th and early 19th-century sashes of 12 lights, mostly with flat arches of gauged brick. One ground-floor window on each side of the central door has a segmental arch, and there are two blocked window apertures on the first floor. The central entrance is a half-glazed door set back within a semi-circular arched porch with rusticated jambs, engaged fluted Doric columns, and an entablature decorated with floral ornament in low relief. The façade has a plain band, moulded brick cornice, and panelled parapet, with the central section breaking forward. The right return has on the first floor one early 19th-century sash of 9+6 lights with crown glass. The rear elevation displays on the first floor two 18th and early 19th-century sashes of 12 lights, also with crown glass. Four truncated octagonal shafts stand in line, overhanging a rectangular base with egg-and-dart cornice.

To the front, along the street boundary, runs a cast and wrought iron railing on a dwarf wall of gault brick with a cast iron coping. The railings are joined to the front corners of the house by spur walls. Ten cast iron stanchions with tassel terminals support the railings, which terminate in cast iron foliate ornament. The central gate features curved saltire bracing and two bands of foliate ornament at the base. The railings end at each end in a red brick pier, partly rendered, with a moulded stone cap; the spur walls are red brick with plain brick coping, approximately one metre in height.

Internally, nearly every room is lined with panelling, mostly plain, though some dates to the 18th century and displays fielded panels. Moulded covings appear in most rooms. 18th and 19th-century 2-panel doors are throughout. The entrance hall features a wood-burning hearth with splayed back and bolection-moulded surround, and in its rear wall a recessed cupboard with semi-circular arch and fluted pilasters. In the rear right corner, a semi-elliptical arch leads to the stair hall. An 18th-century stair has scrolled tread-ends, three twist-turned balusters to each tread, square newels, a wide moulded handrail, and continues round a gallery. An early 19th-century straight stair rises from the first floor to the attic in the right section (now Ormonde Cottage), with hardwood rail and stick balusters. Axial and transverse beams above the ground and first floors are all boxed or panelled. At the left end of the first floor sits an eared fire surround of circa 1800, decorated with classical grotesque ornament in low relief. Early 19th-century shutters with fielded panelling survive inside the first-floor window at the right end. Some evidence of the original structure is visible in the roof.