Clifton Hill Coach House

This is a coach house built in 1852 for the owner of No. 5 Powis Villas, Mr. J. R. Browne, who purchased additional land to build it. The north east elevation is faced with flints with red brick lacing courses, window dressings, and pilaster strips, while the north west side is rendered. The south east and south west walls are currently not visible. It has a slate gambrel roof.

The north east elevation originally had four windows, but now has three round-headed windows with metal glazing bars and one blocked window. A full-height coach opening has double plank doors, each embellished with original cast iron dog’s heads within cast iron ovolo-moulded circles. To the left of the coach opening is a lower double door, likely inserted after 1937 when the building was used for motor repairs. The north west end features a curved pediment and two full-height square piers. There are two original round-headed windows with metal glazing bars, and a formerly pedestrian entrance, now blocked but visible internally. The facade incorporates sculptural embellishments, now mainly painted but likely made of Portland or Coade stone, intended to enhance the view from Mr. Browne’s house. These details include a bust of a man in 17th-century armour on the left pier, a winged lion along the coping, a large central roundel of a lion in the pediment, and four relief heads - three female and one male, which may represent the Four Seasons. The pediment retains the plinth of a missing statue, and the top of the right hand pier was once obscured by vegetation.

The interior features a softwood roof with queenposts, angled ties, and purlins. A suspended wooden floor spanned half the width of the building, apparently functioning as a hayloft. A cast iron fireplace is located on the south side. The western part of the building, formerly used as a coach house, had a brick floor, while the eastern part, used for stabling the carriage horses, retained a cobbled floor and the groove where a stall partition once stood. A mid-20th century hand petrol pump sits between the doors.

The coach house was later let and converted into a motor repair garage, then used for storage for the nearby Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children. It is a substantially intact and rare survival of a coach house associated with a mid-19th century villa, displaying a blend of vernacular building materials and polite architectural and sculptural features.