Bridge Hill House

Bridge Hill House is a late 18th-century house with early 19th-century side additions and an entrance lobby. It is stuccoed with a hipped slate roof and stuccoed chimneystacks, rising two to three storeys. The main front comprises a three-storey range with paired brackets. It features three sixteen-pane sashes in a moulded architrave, with vermiculated keystones, cill brackets, and a band separating the floors. A matching one-bay wing of lower elevation sits to the right, featuring a circular window. An early 19th-century two-storey addition is attached to this wing. A projecting single-storey entrance porch, also from the early 19th century, is positioned between the two wings, and includes a parapet wall, cornice, and two moulded bands. The doorway has simple moulded pilasters and brackets supporting a projecting curved hood. A further three-storey one-bay wing is situated to the left of the main block. The rear elevation has two storeys, with long casement windows on the first floor set in moulded surrounds with vermiculated keystones. Ground floor casements have transom lights and jalousies, opening onto a tented verandah with a copper roof, cast iron tracery arches, and columns formed of kindles of slender bars terminating in floral emblems. Inside, the fittings are of high quality, including marble fire surrounds, six-panelled doors, window shutters, a sweeping staircase with cut and bracketed strings, and an oval roof light above the top landing. The entrance porch contains a domed fanlight in etched glass which rises from a richly decorated plaster band, an image niche, and a large archway leading to a hall, with stone flags on the floor. The house was first occupied by Charles Louis Secondal Baron de Montesquieu, and later by the Anderson family, known for their shipping line.