Bon Secours Nursing Home

This is a late 18th-century house, now a nursing home, with significant extensions from the 19th century and 20th centuries. The core of the building dates from around 1795. The main block is of stock brick, rendered with flint extensions, and has plain-tiled roofs. The entrance front features three storeys, with the ground and first floors rendered and a string course separating the shaped gabled second floor. It has a hipped roof with a flat, railed central portion and stacks to the left and right, with shaped gables to the return elevation. A wooden casement with a label hood is located in the gable, and three mullioned and transomed windows with label hoods are on the first floor, with two similar windows on the ground floor. A double half-glazed door is situated within an arched, moulded surround in a central projecting porch with a pierced parapet. The corners of this central block are recessed and curved, showcasing elaborate scrolls incised into the render. Two-storey hipped wings flank the left and right sides of the entrance front, each featuring mullioned and transomed windows with label hoods on both floors. The right wing has been extended by a single-storey, 20th-century weather-boarded range with a flint tower behind, while the left wing has a projecting two-storey stock brick wing, dated 1884, with a shaped gable and two sashes on each floor of each face.

The garden front incorporates a three-storey hipped block (the original late 18th-century range) with an attic, and a later 19th-century cross-wing behind with shaped gables. Features include a single dormer, three wooden casements and one small light on the second floor, and three on the first floor, sheltered by a tented canopy. Mullioned and transomed bays are present on the ground floor, accompanied by a glazed door and a verandah extending across the right-hand wing. A two-storey hipped wing is situated to the right, possessing a sash window on the first floor and mullioned ground floor openings. An end wing of two storeys, with canted bays of differing sizes on both the first and ground floors, is also present. A gabled two-storey flint wing on the left features a mullioned and transomed window and door ensemble. A round, battlemented flint tower stands at the end of the left range, illustrated in contemporary prints from 1806. Further flint buildings remain at the end of a range of outbuildings to the right (east), representing the remains of other illustrated flint towers from 1806. The outbuildings include a laundry building distinguished by an open arcaded ground floor with a segmental cornice, and corniced windows.

The interior showcases a large staircase hall with a wreathed handrail to the stair and gallery. The house was originally built around 1795 for Joseph Ruse and was named Belmont. It was purchased and became the home of the Earl of Darnley between 1801 and 1817 (at which point it was renamed West Cliff House), before becoming the seat of the Warre family from 1877 to 1904. Princess Victoria was a frequent visitor. It has operated as a nursing home since 1949.