The Red House

THE RED HOUSE, BELL STREET

An elaborate red brick house dating from circa 1700, refronted in 1720-30, with rear extensions built in 1860-70. The building is set back slightly from the street and exemplifies Georgian architectural principles combined with earlier timber-framed construction and later Victorian alterations.

The front range comprises two storeys and attic rooms, one room deep, with a central entrance and stair. Behind this sits a shorter central rear range built in English bond brickwork with a semi-basement kitchen. The earliest phase featured a low room above the kitchen under a catslip continuation of the main roof, with a lateral chimney. During the Victorian period, the roof was raised to create a drawing room, and the western rooms were extended to the rear. A single-storey coach-house was added at the eastern end in the later 19th century.

The roof is old red tile with internal gable chimneys. Three heavy pedimented dormers survive from the earliest phase, featuring wooden mouldings of considerable projection. The middle pediment displays a three-centred curve, while the outer ones are triangular.

The facade is a textbook example of a five-window Georgian front in red brick with gauged brick window dressings. It features a dentilled cornice above a parapet, rusticated corner pilasters, a moulded band at floor level, and a broad rusticated panel surrounding the central flat-arched window. The 18th-century boxed sashes are slightly recessed and contain six-over-six panes. The central doorway has a six-panel door with central bead and raised and fielded panels, topped by a three-pane fanlight. The wooden doorcase is particularly elegant, displaying fluted Ionic pilasters and a full entablature with a swelled frieze, modillioned cornice, and segmental pediment.

The interior retains significant early features. A circa 1700 well stair rises through two storeys, with panelled string, turned balusters, and a moulded handrail raking in cusp curves. The panelled west room on the first floor, also of the same period, contains a two-panel raised and fielded door, similar panelling above and below a moulded chair rail, and a moulded cornice. The fire surround displays an architrave, consoles, and full entablature serving as a shelf, with two-panel cupboard doors fitted with H-hinges. Window recesses and reveals feature later ovolo-moulded flat panelling.

A wide three-centred arch of circa 1860-70 with floral impost leads into a small extension with contemporary cornice, deep frieze, and a two-over-two sash window. The ground floor west room has a two-panel bolection-moulded door with raised and fielded panels, panelled dado, and moulded cornice. Its wooden fire surround dates from circa 1790 and features fluted pilasters with flattened drum caps, a full entablature with relief ornament, and a frieze decorated with swags, urns on projections above each pilaster, and a central tablet carved with a lyre, crossed musical instruments, and swags. A leaf bed mould and decorated shelf edge complete the design. Yellow figured marble slips and an early 19th-century basket grate are fitted within.

The former basement kitchen contains a large blocked fireplace with a shelf on shaped brackets and a round-headed cupboard to its left, featuring a panelled door and H-hinges. Eight-over-four box sash windows with segmental arches and slightly recessed boxes are fitted. The Victorian drawing room contains two-over-two recessed sashes with gauged flat arches, a floral cornice with egg-and-dart moulding and cove, and a simple marble fire surround. Plank doors generally feature in the attic rooms, while two-panel doors are common elsewhere.

The single-storey coach-house, built of red brick and roofed in slate, stands to the east. The date 1875 is said to be carved on a tie beam. Red brick walls flank a front court closed by a wooden fence of six posts with square urn finials, linked by simple picket and rail panels over a dwarf wall, probably following the original pattern.

This house and its interior were extensively illustrated by Nathaniel Lloyd in his A History of English Brickwork (1928, page 307) and The History of the English House (1931, pages 242, 339, and 460).