1-8, McDonalds Almshouses

SU 8246 and SU 8346 8/336

FARNHAM WEST STREET (north side) Nos 1-8 McDonalds Almshouses

II Range of eight almshouses. Dated 1905. By A Stedman. Red brick in stretcher bond with ashlar dressings; front gables timber-framed with plaster infill. Plain tile roofs.

One storey; nine bays. the central, projecting, gabled bay with attic and end bays also projecting and gabled. Chamfered plinth; doors half-glazed with leaded upper panels; stone mullion-and-transom windows with quoined jambs and leaded lights; barge boards to gables. Symmetrical elevation in rhythm a, b, c, b, d, b, c, b, a.

Central bay has archway flanked by stone-coped wall supporting timber arcade forming porches to doors of central almshouses, each door with a side-light; in the gable a decorative plaster panel bearing date and name set below a four-light wood-mullioned window. End bays each have a six-light king-mullioned window with one bay of arcading either side, on inner side forming porch to door, on outer side fronting a window, each gable has a decorative plaster panel with sundial and motto "Time and tide wait for no man". Bays three and seven have gabled, arcaded porches to paired doors, flanked by three-light curved-corner windows. Cross windows to intermediate bays. Tall ribbed and corniced stacks in front and rear roof pitches and to ridges of gabled bays.

Rear: central archway partly infilled by added brick block.

Each almshouse has a low wing, slightly extended later C20 under a hipped roof.