Avonbank And Attached Front Garden Walls, Piers And Gates Llanfoist And Attached Front Garden Walls, Piers And Gates

Avonbank and Llanfoist and Attached Front Garden Walls, Piers and Gates

A pair of attached houses, now offices, built in 1857 and designed by Henry Goodrich. They are constructed of squared, coursed Carboniferous limestone rubble with limestone dressings. Both buildings have exterior and party wall stacks and a double-pile pantile hipped roof. The plan is double-depth and the style is Italianate.

Each house comprises three storeys and a basement with a three-window range. The front elevation is nearly symmetrical, divided by a rusticated quoin strip. Taller outer towers are set forward with pyramidal roofs, and two-storey entrance blocks occupy the ends. The rusticated quoins and dressings have vermiculation on the ground floor. String courses at sill height break forward over the quoins and are incised with Greek key motifs on the first floor and Vitruvian scroll on the second floor.

The entrance to Llanfoist is located in the right return, beneath a segmental-arched porte-cochere with balusters carried over from Sutton House. This leads to a small bayed lobby and a semicircular-arched doorway with fanlight and six-panel door. The entrance to Avonbank, in the left-hand block, features Gibbs blocks to a segmental arch with a doorway matching that of Llanfoist.

The outer first-floor windows are semicircular-arched two-light windows in square frames with cornices, containing semicircular-arched panes with a round one above. Stone balconies on heavy brackets with lion heads biting rings accompany these windows. The towers feature wide five-light bays with semicircular-arched windows topped with carved keys and ball finials cut through by square sections. Smaller three-light bows above have panelled pilaster jambs with acanthus capitals and cornices. The second floors of the towers carry a frieze incised with Greek key, moulded eaves and ball finials. The middle windows are similar to the outer sections, with keyed segmental-arched heads on the second floor.

The right return has a ground-floor window matching the front and a central semicircular-arched arcade to the first floor. The left return contains a central tripartite window with blocked jambs and a Venetian window above.

The rear elevation displays a left-hand full-height canted bay, a pedimented section to the right with tripartite windows, and a projected five-light bay with a copper domed roof.

Internally, Llanfoist contains notable Greek Revival-style plaster decoration. A large lateral stair hall is divided at each end by a segmental arch. A cantilevered stone open-well stair with moulded soffit and wrought-iron barleysugar balusters and curtail is lit by a lantern with bayleaf decoration. Scrolled brackets support a cornice over the entrance doorway. The rooms feature panelled reveals, six-panel doors, shutters and marble fire surrounds.

The front garden is bounded by attached squared, coursed rubble walls, battered at the base with bracketed coping. Ashlar piers support timber gates with decorative cast-iron panels.

These buildings form part of a group of four imposing houses fronting the Downs.