Smallcombe House

Smallcombe House is a detached house dating from around 1820, situated on a sloping site that backs onto the Kennet and Avon Canal. The building features a limestone ashlar facade with rough ashlar returns and a double-pitched slate roof, complete with moulded stacks at the coped gable ends.

The house has a double-depth plan and is two storeys tall with a lower ground floor. Its symmetrical front has three windows, with a ground floor platband and banded rustication. The flat arched recesses are adorned with radial voussoirs and slightly dropped keystones. A prostyle porch with Tuscan columns and an entablature frames a central six-panel door that includes circular panels. The ground floor windows are eight/eight-pane sashes, while a small rectangular window with a grille is located to the left. The first floor features six/six-pane sash windows that have balconettes. The building is topped with coped parapets and cornices at both the front and rear, along with a sill band on the first floor. In front of the house, there are cast iron railings with spearheaded finials on a stone plinth, complemented by pyramid-capped gate piers.

Inside, a 1991 survey by the Bath Preservation Trust noted the presence of a curved open-string stone staircase with plain balusters and a mahogany handrail, located to the right of a large, stone-flagged entrance hall. The large drawing room spans the full width of the rear ground floor and features folding doors in the center, with painted wood fireplaces at each end and a plaster cornice with a running flower motif. Reeded architraves with paterae at the corners enhance the space, and a black and white marble chimneypiece is flanked by alcoves with reeded architraves leading to a small sitting room to the left of the entrance. The upper bedrooms retain chimneypieces, six-panel doors, alcoves, cupboards, and plasterwork. The basement includes French doors leading to a verandah, as well as a study and dining room featuring wood and stone chimneypieces and arched vaults beneath the pavement.