Ashurst

Ashurst is a pair of joined Italianate villas built in 1864, designed by William Oldham Chambers, and later converted into a care home.

The building is made of brick and features hipped slate roofs. Originally, it consisted of two separate houses with side entrance bays, but the layout has been unified for use as a hotel and subsequently as a care home.

Standing three storeys high and four bays wide along the east (seafront) elevation, the exterior showcases Italianate details, including rusticated brick quoins, keystones above windows, moulded architraves on most windows, a modillion eaves cornice, and cornices between each storey.

The east elevation is symmetrical, featuring a pair of central two-storey canted bay windows, which now have 20th-century fenestration. Brick quoins mark the original division of the two halves of the building. The outer bays and the second floor retain their original two-over-two wooden sash windows, with segmental heads on the upper storey.

Both the north and south elevations consistently display round-arched one-over-one sash windows. On the north side, there is a recessed bay that houses a four-storey tower topped with a swept pyramidal roof and iron cresting. Adjacent to this bay is an entrance porch extension and a first-floor canted oriel window.