The Old Pest House

This is a mid-18th century house built as an isolation hospital, with later 19th-century alterations and embellishments. It is constructed of red brick in a Flemish bond, with an old tiled roof featuring brick parapeted ends and half-Dutch gables at the rear. The building has elaborate brick chimneystacks with moulded bands and oversailing caps. A central, raised, tile-hung flat-roofed rear extension sits above the lower slope of a low, swept-slip roof.

The first floor windows are 3-light and 2-light small-panel iron casement windows with projecting frames and moulded embattled heads raised on cut profiled corner brackets. A plat band runs at first-floor level. The ground floor has two projecting moulded mullion and transom oriel bays with small-paned iron casements, beneath old tile lean-to roofs with curved plastered spandrels. The central entrance is a hardwood door with nine panels, the upper three glazed with a leaded light, and is covered by a tiled open-gabled hood raised on braced brackets. Small projecting windows are visible on the north gable; the south gable has a modern hip roof. Three attic dormers are present at the front, the outer two with half-hipped roofs, and the central one with a hipped roof, all featuring small-panel iron casements.

The interior has not been inspected.

The Old Pest House was built in 1763 as an isolation hospital against smallpox by Thomas Dimsdale, who lived at Port Hill House. The plot adjoined his garden, and he had purchased an extensive estate in the area; Port Hill House was known as 'The Inoculation House'.