Rathcoole House

Rathcoole House, built around 1870, is the main house of a development designed by T. Collcutt and constructed by Jennings, who was keen on using the then-popular terra-cotta as a building material. The house has two storeys, an attic, and a basement, featuring irregular window arrangements. It has three bays facing Ferndale Road, while a one-bay left return to Bedford Road creates an impression of significant height. The building is made of red brick with striking terra-cotta decorations. It has a high-pitched tiled roof with decorative ridge tiles and fishscale tiling on the cheeks of wide dormer gables that break the eaves, one on each side. The pale terra-cotta details include random block quoins, an eaves cornice, string courses, and architraves for the segment-headed windows and round-arched doorway. The architectural style combines classical and Jacobean elements. Notable features include an elliptical full-height oriel bay above the entrance adorned with strapwork and balustrading, as well as similar decorative elements on a two-storey canted bay on the Bedford Road side and the gable above it.