The Mansion

The Mansion is a large house, now used as council offices and a library, built in 1739 as a rebuilding of an earlier house. It was designed by Alexander Akehurst and remodelled around 1810, with further alterations made since. The house is constructed of red brick in a Flemish bond pattern, with stone dressings that have been painted white, and has a red tile roof. It follows a double-pile plan with wings added to each end.

The main façade is symmetrical, consisting of 1:7:1 bays over cellars. It features a rendered plinth, punched rusticated quoins, a plain frieze, and a moulded cornice with a parapet and flat coping. A rectangular, flat-roofed porch is centrally positioned, featuring fluted Ionic corner pilasters, a plan frieze, and a dentilled cornice, with recessed glazed doors. Windows are 12-pane sashes; those on the ground floor have elaborate moulded architraves and cornices supported on consoles, while those above have raised sills and similar cornices. The roof is hipped, with two ridge chimneys. A set-back, single-bay link connects to a service wing on the left side, which is not of particular architectural interest, and a set-back, two-bay extension is on the right-hand side.

At the rear, the main range has a central doorway with a moulded architrave and cornice on large consoles, a glazed door, some blocked cellar openings in the plinth, and an inserted glazed door at the right-hand end. It also features 12-pane sashed windows with louvred sliding shutters on both floors, an oculus at the left end of the first floor, and a hipped roof with a small dormer in the centre and two ridge chimneys. Wings, three bays wide (the southern wing set back), are attached at each end, mirroring the first-floor windows and featuring a large square conservatory on the ground floor. The conservatory has Tuscan columns arranged tetrastyle in antis, glazed screen walls, and flat roofs.

Inside, the entrance hall has pilasters, a vine frieze, ceiling beams with similar decoration, and a fine early 18th-century open-string staircase with a doglegged design, a flying upper flight, carved brackets, two turned balusters per tread, a ramped handrail (possibly relocated), and inserted partition walls. The rear range, now the public library, contains a moulded plaster cornice, a shouldered fireplace made of white marble with a wooden entablature in the central room, and to the south of that, a panelled room containing a Doric screen composed of two fluted columns distyle in antis.