Orchard Close Orchard Dene The Orchard

This is a large marine villa, originally built in the 16th century and substantially remodelled or rebuilt around 1813. It has since been divided into flats. The house was extended by Sir Willoughby Gordon, an aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington and later Quartermaster General of the Forces and Private Military Secretary to the Duke of York. It is constructed of Isle of Wight ashlar in a Gothic style, with a slate roof and stone chimneystacks. The main part of the garden front has two storeys and three windows, with three gables featuring kneelers and blank shields. A dominant feature is a large, thirteen-light canted bay with sashes having trefoiled heads, supported by clustered cast iron and with a tent-shaped canopy above. Other windows have cambered heads and double French windows. A double eight-pane sash with a hood moulding sits beneath the right-hand gable. The left-hand side has a doorcase with a four-centred arch and eight Gothic-headed panes, topped with a fanlight of intersecting glazing bars. A two-storey canted bay is also present on the left side. The right-hand wing has three storeys, a hipped roof, three double Gothic windows on the second floor, and a large four-light canted bay on the first floor. To the left of this is a further two-storey portion, Orchard Dene, featuring two Gothic-headed lights on the first floor and four large four-light windows on the ground floor, with trefoiled-headed sash windows and hood mouldings. The left side of Orchard Dene is built of white brick, with one casement window having a trefoiled head and a first-floor four-light canted bay. To the rear is Orchard Close, also of white brick, with a hipped slate roof and cemented chimneystacks, constructed in a similar style. The interior of the main house includes plaster reliefs of the Parthenon friezes, a wine cellar with slate shelves, and a staircase hall with stone flags, a curved staircase with clustered iron balusters, and a mahogany handrail. The site was previously home to a 16th-century house owned by the Orchard family, although no remains of this were found during a survey. Sketches of the house and garden were created by J.M. Turner and Sir David Wilkie R.A. The poet Algernon Swinburne, a nephew of Lady Gordon, was a frequent visitor, and his poem "A Forsaken Garden" (1876) is believed to have been inspired by the garden at The Orchard. The house appeared in an aquatint after John Grendall published in Ackermann's Repository of Arts in April 1826, and also in a print of 1821. It is considered one of the most significant early 19th-century villas in the Undercliff area of the Isle of Wight. The building contains stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops.