Saltford House And Attached Garden Walls To North And West

Saltford House is a detached house with attached garden walls, situated on the north side of High Street in Saltford. The building is dated 1771, as shown on an east return wall rainwater head marked TB (Thomas Bennett), and has undergone alterations and additions during the early and late 19th centuries. It was possibly designed by the amateur architect Thomas Bennett for his own occupation.

The house is built in a severe late-Palladian style in the manner of John Wood the Younger of Bath. The south facade is constructed of limestone ashlar, while the side walls and west annexe are rendered. The rear wall is built of squared and coursed rubble with ashlar dressings to windows and copings. The building features ashlar gable stacks and a slate double-span roof. The attached garden walls are of squared and coursed rubble with a rubble wall to the rear, ashlar copings, and dressed limestone openings.

The plan is of double-depth arrangement with a central staircase and two reception rooms on either side. The principal south facade is of three storeys with a five-window range. The ground floor displays chamfered rustication with a platband above the ground-floor windows and a sill band below the first-floor openings. The chamber floor has individual sills, and the facade is topped with a bracketed cornice and blind parapet that ramps on the return walls to the stacks. Windows to the ground and first floors are 12-pane sashes, while the chamber floor has 6/3 sashes. A central recessed doorway contains a 6-panel door with a doorcase featuring Ionic half columns and a pediment with dentil cornice.

The three-storey rear elevation has a three-window range with a projecting mid-19th-century ashlar extension at ground floor, topped with a balustraded parapet. This elevation features two tripartite windows with plate-glass casements either side of a central round-arched door with a flat hood on brackets and a part-glazed door with fanlight above. A raised terrace in front is surrounded by a balustrade with capped piers and steps. The first floor contains early 19th-century 16-pane sashes in flush ashlar surrounds to the outer bays and a central round-headed sash with intersecting Y-tracery in the head. The second floor has 4/8 early 19th-century sashes with segmental-headed surrounds to the centre and right; the left opening was enlarged in the late 19th century with a cross-mullion casement providing access to a wrought-iron external staircase.

The two-storey, two-window rear elevation of the annexe features a cornice and blind parapet beneath a double-span hipped roof. The ground floor has late 19th-century plate-glass sashes, while the first floor has early 19th-century 12-pane sashes in plain reveals with sills.

The interior retains original acanthus and lozenge cornices in the entrance lobby and the ground-floor front room to the right. The staircase hall is distinguished by a fine semicircular arch with Doric pilasters. An open well staircase features a ramped mahogany handrail with turned balusters in groups of three. All chimneypieces date from the late 19th century or are modern; the ground-floor reception rooms contain much recent decorative plasterwork. The annexe to the right has not been inspected internally.

The garden wall attached to the left-hand return facade extends along the building line and returns to the front garden wall, featuring a doorway with blocked rustication and a plank door. The rear coped wall encloses the garden and has dressed limestone openings on the east for two plank doors and a blocked window.

The original list description references a trellised verandah to the ground floor, now removed. The house represents a good example of a late 18th-century dwelling retaining some original features.