Northdown

Northdown is a house designed in 1924 by Charles Bowles for Mr Bridges, built in the Arts and Crafts style. The house is constructed of rendered surfaces, with some timber framing, brickwork, and tile hanging, covered by a hipped tiled roof punctuated by three tall brick chimneystacks. It is a symmetrical two-storey building with attics, featuring five windows on the front elevation and four at the rear. The windows are wooden casements with leaded lights. The front elevation features a projecting central brick bay containing a tall six-panel staircase window on the first floor, an oak-panelled and studded front door, and hipped dormers with triple windows piercing the roof. Flanking this are timber-framed bays with continuous mullioned windows on the first floor, and continuous mullioned and transomed windows on the ground floor. Projecting rendered gabled bays mark the ends of the house, with arrowslit airbricks to the attic and mullioned windows below. The rear elevation is largely rendered, except for projecting central two bays which have tile hanging to the first floor. A garden room was added to the ground floor left side around 1960. The right side elevation features an end chimneystack with a tiled decorative panel, while the left side has a single-storey, contemporary rendered kitchen office with mullioned windows, an oak door and sidelight under a hipped roof, and an original garage converted into a room.

The interior includes a tiled hall, a half-winder oak staircase with massive acorn finials and rusticated piers to both the ground and first floors, turned balusters, and bell-shaped finials. Ground floor doors are oak-panelled and planked with iron hinges. The study features a wooden fireplace with a grainy marble surround, an eaves cornice, and a picture rail. The first floor has painted panelled doors; Bedroom 1 has a wooden fireplace surround, and Bedroom 2 has a wooden fireplace with a tiled surround and border tiles. Other fireplaces and kitchen cupboards are not thought to be original, but are in a similar style. Architectural drawings indicate some initial variations relating to the depth of the second and fourth windows, and a lack of dormers on the front elevation, however these discrepancies likely resulted from a late request from the client, given their subsequent implementation and consistent appearance.