Millmead House

Millmead House is a late 17th-century house that has been adapted for use as council offices. It features 18th-century alterations and extensions from the 19th and 20th centuries, all designed in a similar style. The building is constructed from deep red/brown brick in the center, orange-brown brick to the left, and red brick to the right, topped with low-pitched hipped slate roofs. Originally rectangular, the house is now L-shaped due to the extensions that project forward on the right side.

The structure has two storeys and attics, with stacks located at the rear left of the center and at the right end. The original house is five bays wide and has a brick modillion eaves cornice that now serves as the base for the attic storey. There is a blue header plat band across the ground floor plinth below. The attic features five 6-pane sash windows under gauged-brick heads, some of which have been renewed, while the first floor has five 12-pane glazing-bar sash windows. The central window on the first floor is in the Gibbs style, with a block-rusticated surround under a segmental pediment, and blue headers in the tympanum and keystone at the center. The remaining first-floor windows have raised shouldered surrounds with keystones above.

The ground floor projects below a stone-coped parapet, with two large 12-pane glazing-bar sash windows flanking a central rendered and projecting frontispiece. This frontispiece features a modillioned entablature over attached three-quarter Roman Ionic columns and channelled outer piers. The paired doors are made of fielded panels with egg and dart mouldings and margin tracery above in the transom light.

To the left, there is an extension of four bays with similar fenestration, and to the right, a one-bay addition includes two attic sashes and one window on the first floor. The end wing on the right projects and has three windows across the front and four windows deep. The rear of the building has further extensions that are not of special interest.

Inside, there is a fine 18th-century turned baluster staircase of notable quality, along with 18th and 19th-century fielded-panel doors in architraves without string surrounds and some ceiling coving. The most impressive room is on the first floor, accessed via the main staircase, and was formerly the Rural District Council Chamber.