James House Including Garden Walls Adjoining To Rear

House, late 17th century, with 19th and 20th century modernisation. White-washed Flemish bond brick on sandstone footings with brick stacks and chimneyshafts; peg-tile roof.

The building is a double-depth plan house facing west-northwest, two rooms wide and two rooms deep. The larger main rooms at the front have end stacks (kitchen to the right and parlour to the left) with unheated service rooms to the rear. The central front entrance now leads directly into the former kitchen, now the entrance hall. Originally there was probably a passage through the house to the staircase, which projects to the rear. A second passage behind the parlour, accessed from a left (north) doorway, leads to the foot of the stairs. The partition between the former kitchen/entrance hall and rear service room has been removed. Single-storey one-room plan extensions exist at each end of the front; the right (southern) one is larger with an end stack and now serves as the kitchen. The main house is two storeys with attics in the roofspace; the additions are single storey.

The exterior presents a symmetrical three-window front with 19th century 12-pane sashes under flat brick arches. A central doorway reached by one stone step contains an original bead-moulded doorframe beneath a flat-roofed hood on shaped timber brackets, with a 19th century eight-panel door. A flat brick band runs at first-floor level. The eaves are plain and deep, and the tall roof is hipped at both ends, containing two flat-roofed dormers with nine-pane sash windows. The left extension at the front contains a single 19th century 16-pane sash window, while the right has two 20th century mullion-and-transom windows; both have hipped roofs. The left end extension is a porch with a doorway flanked by sidelights and a hood similar in style to the front doorway. The rear elevation is less regular in appearance but looks more original, containing flat-faced mullion-and-transom windows with rectangular panes of leaded glass. Most are early 20th century replacements, though a couple are probably original; the dormers certainly are. The stair block contains an early 20th century door opening from the garden terrace onto the first half landing, with a hipped roof.

The interior has been modernised in the 19th and 20th centuries but most of the structure is thought to be original. The former kitchen crossbeam is chamfered with run-out stops, and some framing of the ground-floor partitions is exposed. The roof consists of collared tie-beam trusses with staggered butt purlins. Some original joinery survives, including a box cornice in the parlour and a good dogleg stair with moulded boards over the closed string, square newel posts with moulded pendants, moulded flat handrail and turned balusters. The fireplaces have been blocked or altered, and most joinery is 19th or 20th century.

The garden wall to the rear of the left (north) end comprises several builds. The section nearest the house is probably late 17th century, built in flying bond red brick with decorative burnt headers. The rest is probably earlier than the house itself, constructed of ragstone blocks laid to rough courses, with the southern (garden) side faced with Flemish bond small red bricks. The top courses are similar to the other section.