Somerset House

Somerset House is an early 19th-century house, originally one of an unequal pair (number 2 is listed separately). It is constructed of limestone ashlar with a slate roof. The building has a broad frontage, with the centre bay slightly set forward. The front elevation has a two-bay, one-bay, two-bay arrangement of windows, featuring twelve-pane sashes with square sills and floating cornices to the first floor. A door with a moulded circular top panel is contained within a projecting portico, which has Tuscan columns supporting a full entablature and blocking, responds, and outer pilasters. To the left of the portico is a basement grille, and to the right, simple spearhead railings and a gate lead to a set of steps in the area. The portico architrave is continued as a platband, topped by a moulded cornice with a blocking course and parapet. Paired end stacks are present, along with a further stack to the left of the door bay, set beneath an independent hipped roof. The right return has a continuous parapet with two ashlar stacks, and a twelve-pane sash at first floor to the rear. The rear elevation features four twelve-pane sashes to the upper two floors, three plain sashes, and a central inserted oculus at ground floor. There are also twelve-pane sashes with a glazed door under a slab hood to the lower ground level. The interior has not been inspected. Across the front, spiked railings, swept up at the ends and set on a low stone wall with weathered flush coping, enclose a central area with paired square ashlar piers and cast iron gates. The gates have a concave top rail, dog-bars, and lead down six steps flanked by stone strings and simple handrails. The coped wall at each end rises steeply to the piers and continues back to the main frontage, including a plank gate at the north end. To the right of the railed section is a stretch of plain wall with steeply pitched ashlar coping, extending approximately 18 metres. The front is powerfully austere and features an unusually treated porch, reflecting the influence of the Greek Revival style and potentially linked to the work of the young Henry Edward Goodridge. The building formerly served as the Widcombe vicarage.