Widcombe Lodge

Widcombe Lodge is a detached house built in the early 19th century, with possible incorporation of earlier fabric and later alterations. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with a slate roof. The house is a villa with a low-pitched hipped roof extending to deep box eaves, featuring two entrances directly from Church Street. The garden front includes a half-octagonal return wing and a canted bay at the north-west end.

The two-story facade to Church Street has various sash windows. The central window above the original four-panel door, which has a transom light, is framed by broad, channelled pilasters, a keystone, and a moulded cornice hood. Broad external eaves stacks are positioned on triple brackets at the first floor on each side. A plinth is visible, with the bottom four courses of ashlar walling vermiculated. Broad double platbands are present at sill and hood heights, along with rusticated quoins. The right return features four-pane sashes extending the full height within a hipped roofed bay, with matching quoins and bands, and a stack to a plain recessed section. To the left, a door is set into a boundary wall, connected to the house by a short passageway, creating a small interior courtyard. A 19th-century three-panelled door, with a pediment hood and bronze plaque, is also present. The left return, angled obtusely to the street, has a lean-to addition to the main wall and a hipped end to a single-story extension, featuring a twelve-pane sash. The garden front displays three eight-pane sashes at each level within a broad canted projection, followed by a sash above a tripartite sash to a balustrade in a projecting element. This is linked to a long, single-story wing, which contains two twelve-pane sashes. The interior has not been inspected.

Subsidiary features include a rubble boundary wall, approximately 2 meters high, on the street front to the right, flush with the rear wall of the villa and extending across the site to abut a neighboring property with a large stepped-up section. A similar wall to the left contains a second doorway, swept down, continuing the full width to a pair of plank doors. A bronze plaque commemorates Henry and Sarah Fielding (1754 and 1710-1768), who lived at the site circa 1739-1757. The plaque was unveiled by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1906, implying an earlier house on the site, though this is not evident externally. Some sources identify the building as Yew Cottage, the former vicarage and the oldest house in the area. It was substantially enlarged and renamed in the late 19th century.