Waterside Preparatory School (The Old Estate Mansion)

The Waterside Preparatory School, also known as the Old Estate Mansion, is a large York stone house built in 1868 by P.C. Hardwick (the younger) as part of the Farnham Hassobury Estate. The house is designed in the Gothic style and is intentionally asymmetric. It is mainly two and three stories high, with a one-story wing on the west side and attics above. The north front features a large gable, a three-story, half-octagonal castellated bay, and a three-story entrance wing, gabled with a large oriel bay on the first storey, and a Gothic arched doorway below. The south front has two gables and two splayed bays with traceried parapets. Windows are primarily stone mullioned and transomed casements with Gothic arched heads. The roof is tiled, with numerous gabled dormers boasting ornamental bargeboards on both frontages, and a number of tall chimney stacks with grouped circular shafts and moulded caps and bases.