Ferndale

Ferndale is a mid-19th century Italianate house built by George Jennings for himself. It features a symmetrical three-bay villa connected by a recessed tower to a second symmetrical three-bay block. The house has three storeys and a basement, with a stone facade, terracotta dressings, and a slate roof. The ground floor serves as a rusticated podium, supported by rusticated angle piers above.

The villa includes a Doric porch with coupled columns on plinth blocks, a recessed tripartite door surround, and flanking tripartite windows. Above a bandcourse and cillband, the first floor has a central window with an entablature and pediment on consoles, flanked by tripartite windows with engaged columns supporting entablatures on consoles, each with a segmental pediment above the center. Each window features an apron of blind balustrading. The second floor windows are similar but lack cornices.

The richly-bracketed frieze is topped by a prominent modillioned eaves-cornice on the shallow hipped roof, which has five round-headed dormers. The chimney stacks are rusticated, with some displaying a blind-arch motif. The second block mirrors this design, but the outer bays feature square bow windows on the ground and first floors, with tripartite windows in the center bay. Jennings was a local builder who significantly contributed to the area's development. The house underwent extensive alteration and restoration in 1980.