Franfer House

Franfer House is an Italianate villa dating to the mid-19th century. It is located on St Thomas's Street. The exterior is faced with stone cut to resemble brick, with pilasters of Roman cement, a plinth, and a low-pitched slate roof with bracketed eaves. The chimney stacks above the eaves have arcaded mouldings. The South front has an asymmetrical arrangement of windows. A rendered tower porch has a low-pitched, pointed slate roof with bracketed eaves and a recessed panelled door with a semi-circular fanlight, a moulded arch springing from a stringcourse, and a cross of Malta above. A clock is positioned above the door, with bands above and below. A recessed round-headed casement window sits above that, with a block sill and moulded arch. The Eastern section of the facade features a ground floor window with five narrow round-headed lights, separated by pilasters and moulded arches rendered. A jettied, rendered bay with a low-pitched gable contains first-floor and semi-attic windows. The first floor has a recessed round-headed casement with a moulded arch springing from a stringcourse, and panel below the sill decorated with incised roundels. The semi-attic has a window with two round-headed lights divided by a pilaster and moulded arches on imposts. There is a similar gabled feature on the East side. The North front, overlooking the sea, is more conventional, with a rendered, shallow rectangular bay to the West and a tripartite first-floor window with plain strips, sash windows, and intact glazing bars, along with a bracketed balcony. A tripartite ground floor window features Tuscan pilasters and an entablature; glazing bars are intact. A small second-floor casement window breaks into the frieze. To the East of the ground and first floors are four-light casements with flanking fluted pilasters and entablatures with dentil cornices. The interior retains much of its original mid- and later-Victorian decoration and furnishings. The South garden is designed in an Italian walled style, featuring inner and outer courts enclosed by high rendered walls, largely due to the current owner.