St Anne'S Convent

This is an early 19th-century villa, later used as a convent. It was enlarged around 1900 and the windows were replaced in the early to mid-20th century.

The original house is built of render over brick, with brick additions. It has a hipped slate roof to the original section and clay tiles to the later additions. The original layout was a square block, originally entered from the north front, but now accessed from the west where it joins the later additions.

The south front is two storeys over a basement and has three bays. It features a moulded cornice, a flat string course, and moulded surrounds to the window openings. The first floor has mullioned and transomed wooden casements, while the ground floor has pivoted upper lights and fixed lower lights, with some blind boxes remaining.

The west front has a 3:2:1:3 bay arrangement. The four bays on the right are part of the original building, and a late 19th-century gabled wooden porch is located in the fourth bay on the right, approached by a flight of steps with a solid balustrade that returns around the south front.

Inside, the stair hall entrance is decorated with Greek Revival style friezes and capitals, a cantilever staircase with cast-iron balusters featuring a stylized wheatsheaf design, and a coved ceiling with three paterae. The three bays of the south front are now occupied by a chapel.

The house was originally built as Wick Lodge, and was surrounded by a verandah on the south and west fronts, as documented on the 1877 Ordnance Survey map. The north additions are depicted on the 1909 Ordnance Survey map, when the building was known as St Michael's Hall, and was a school for ladies, according to street directories. It later became Claremont School, and around 1947 it became a children's home run by the Sisters of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God. At the time of listing, it was a day centre with accommodation for homeless women.