Albert Cottage And Covered Way To South

Albert Cottage is a large villa dating to circa 1868, constructed in an Italianate classical style influenced by Osborne House, and possibly designed by Cubitt. Originally part of the Osborne Estate, the house was named after one of Queen Victoria’s sons and served as a residence for some of her daughters and ladies in waiting.

The building is two storeys and has a cement rendered exterior with a slate roof. It has an irregular plan and rusticated quoins to the ground floor angles. A dentil cornice and frieze runs along the ground floor. Low-pitched, hipped slate roofs feature carved modillion brackets to the eaves, and garlands and marques are incorporated into the frieze between them.

The east-facing entrance front has a main block of eight windows, with two windows in a southern projection. The windows are recessed sashes within architrave surrounds. A projecting porch, closed on the south side but open to the north, features rusticated pilasters flanking moulded round arches with console keystones. A Doric entablature sits above, topped by a balustraded parapet. A recessed brick section, set slightly further back on the north side, has three windows in moulded architrave surrounds incorporating egg and dart and leaf mouldings. The chimney stacks are tall and in an Italianate style, topped with bracketed cornices.

The west-facing garden front is asymmetrical, with a centrally placed three-bay projection. The outer windows are set within architrave surrounds and feature rendered balconettes supported on shaped brackets with interlaced circle balustrades. The central first-floor window is recessed and gives access to the roof of a large, central, ground-floor canted bay window. A French casement is centrally located, divided by tall pilasters with egg and dart moulding to the capitals. On the northern part of the garden front, two architrave-framed sashes are present on the first floor, with a large three-light window in a slight rectangular projection on the ground floor, divided by pilasters, paired to the corners. A parallel parapet with interlaced circles tops the structure. The southern part of the garden front is also set back with two slight projections, with one ground-floor window between them and four first-floor windows in architrave surrounds including balconettes on shaped brackets with interlaced circle balustrades.

A covered passageway extends south, linking Albert Cottage with Osborne Cottage (listed separately). This passageway has rendered brick walls, a plinth, cornice and blocking course, divided by piers. Alternate bays feature three-light lozenge-glazed casements, providing light to the passage.