Ketts Castle Villa, Steps to Sunken Lawn, and Entrance Gateway to St Leonard's Road

Ketts Castle Villa is a substantial Victorian villa built in red brick with ashlar stone window and door surrounds beneath slate-clad roofs. The building has an irregular plan and double-pile construction, with double-span pitched roofs. The south range, which contains the principal elevation, is rectangular with a small central projection housing the entrance porch and tower above. The parallel north range is smaller and of irregular form, with a canted bay to the north-east and a rectangular projection to the north-west. A further small rectangular projection extends from the west end of the south range.

The principal elevation is symmetrical, comprising three bays, two storeys with an attic. The projecting central bay rises through three storeys and is surmounted by Dutch gables on three sides, topped with two lead-covered, crenelated pinnacles. A stone string course runs between the ground and first floors, and continues on the second floor of the central bay at eaves level.

Large clustered Tudor-style brick chimneys project from the north-west, south-west, and south-east angles; the south-west and south-east elevations have offset stacks. The south-east stack bears a framed stone panel with a pastoral scene, while the north-east stack carries a terracotta panel inscribed "JBL, AD 1857". The windows to the principal elevation are all mullioned; those on the ground floor are three-light windows with hood moulds, whilst those on the first floor are two-light, mullioned and transomed. The front doorway features a four-centred stone arch with decorative mouldings and flushwork over the door, which is timber with decorative strapwork hinges.

The north and west elevations have timber windows beneath flat arches, except for the north-east elevation which features a two-storey canted bay. A single-storey lean-to is attached to the north-west. The west elevation contains three-light windows at ground and first-floor level, and bears a terracotta panel with the artist's initials "JBL" on the north gable end. The east elevation is blind except for two small attic windows. The steeply-pitched, double-pile gabled roofs are coped with alternating bands of plain and fishscale slates; the roofs above the north-east bay and lean-to are covered in plain slates only.

The interior retains considerable original character. The front entrance lobby is paved with red and black chequered floor tiles and opens through double doors with glazed panels fitted with an original mechanism to open both simultaneously. The ground floor contains a central entrance hall with the staircase, flanked by reception rooms. The staircase is a dogleg with open-string and plain, slender balusters, two per tread, with carved lions holding shields standing on ball finials to the bottom newel posts.

The principal ground floor rooms retain coving and ceiling roses. The eastern room contains an original Tudor-style stone fireplace with its grate, decorated with highly ornamental floral motifs incorporating shields inscribed "JBL". All internal doors are the original panelled type, and glazing throughout is the original metal-framed variety, except for the entrance porch sides and skylight. Heavy beams with chamfered knee-bracing are present in the rooms either side of the second floor. The central area of the second floor, believed to have been the studio of John Berney Ladbrooke, functions as an unusually large landing with glazed internal windows to permit light passage from the flanking rooms; these windows may have been inserted in the 1960s. A skylight to the north (with modern glazing but believed always to have been present), and a turret section to the south with three-sided windows, light this space.

Approximately 2 metres from the front door, a flight of five stone steps descends to the lawn, flanked by blue brick walls and piers with stone coping and ball finials to the lower piers.

The original main gateway from St Leonard's Road is constructed of knapped flint and yellow brick with brick crenellations, surmounted by a weathered stone panel formerly bearing the family coat of arms. It contains a Tudor-style arched opening and is fitted with a wooden gate of three panels to the lower section and a timber latticed opening above.