Clare House

Clare House is a house built in 1793 for John Larking, designed by Michael Starles of Blackheath. It is constructed of stuccoed brick and features wide-spreading boxed eaves under a slate roof. The building has a trilobed plan, with a central square block flanked by two octagonal bays, and is fronted by a bow with a two-storey loggia. The house has two storeys, with three bays at the ends of the lobes, single bays on the sides of the flanking lobes, and revealed corners of the central square block. The windows are glazing bar sashes with projecting sills on the first floor, extending down to ground level below. There are two doorways with architrave surrounds and shallow flat hoods on brackets in the bays beside the central bow. The bowed loggia is supported by attenuated Tuscan columns that carry an entablature and a first-floor loggia. There are doubled iron supports with cast-iron railings that hold a lead-carved awning with a decorated fringe. The roof above is bowed, with low stacks at the angles behind it, in front of a lead-carved dome. A large square block was added to the rear around 1814, which includes a conservatory projecting to the left at the back.

Inside, there is a central circular two-storey top-lit stairwell. The stair features two lights and an intermediate landing, with an iron balustrade and a wooden handrail that leads up around the rear of the stairwell in an anti-clockwise direction. The drawing room is oval-shaped and has a moulded decorated plaster cornice, with pier glasses inset between the windows that have reeded surrounds and swagged tops. There is a marble pilastered fire surround. The dining room is in a stretched octagon shape, with a decorated moulded plaster cornice and arched recesses on either side of the door, which have composite columns and gilded capitals, along with a marble pilastered fire surround. The library features a moulded plaster cornice and a black marble fire surround in a quasi-Egyptian style. The halls also have moulded decorative plaster cornices, and on the first floor, there are various moulded decorative plaster cornices and moulded wooden fire surrounds.