Litfield House And Attached Front Basement Balustrades

Litfield House is a house, dating from 1830, and now used as a surgery. It was designed by Charles Dyer. The house is constructed of limestone ashlar, with a Pennant ashlar basement and rendered sides, featuring lateral stacks and a slate hipped roof. It has a double-depth plan and is built in a Neoclassical style.

The main front of the house is symmetrical with a five-window range, and includes single-storey, one-window wings set back. A moulded plat band runs beneath paired pilasters between the windows, which are topped with acanthus capitals. A plain frieze, cornice, and parapet are set forward over the pilasters. A large, Pennant-flagged Greek Doric portico has an entablature with triglyphs, metopes to cornice, and a balustraded centre and sides, signed to the right. Narrow three-pane windows flank a plain doorway with a pair of six-panel doors and heavy rings. The ground floor features tripartite windows with thin architraves to six-over-six-pane sashes, and flanking two-over-two-pane sashes. Bowed stone balconies with column balusters and six-over-six-pane sashes are present on the first floor. The wings have central sections that project forward with full-height windows and architraves. There are blind balustrades in the parapet above, with a six-over-six-pane sash to the left and a 20th-century window to the right. The basement is of tooled Pennant ashlar with tripartite windows. The returns of the building feature paired pilasters below two lateral stacks. The rear elevation consists of a three-window range separated by paired pilasters above a plat band, with the left third forming a shallow bow. Tripartite outer ground-floor windows are present, as is a central nine-over-nine-pane stair sash. The remaining windows have architraves to six-over-six-pane sashes.

The interior includes a flagged lobby with a pedimented doorway, and a rear central stair hall with a cantilevered stone open-well staircase featuring cast-iron wide, moulded balusters and foliate newel posts. The front right-hand room on the ground floor has a black marble fire surround with paired pilasters, and distyle-in-antis scagliola Ionic columns to the back. There are doors to a rear, fully-panelled room, which itself contains an eared fire surround. The front left-hand room features a fine marble fire surround with Ionic columns and a cast-iron fire basket. Good plaster ceilings with Greek Revival-style mouldings are present, along with arched recesses with coffered soffits in the left-hand end room. The first-floor bathroom has a sunken bath and green marble panelling. A right-hand dogleg service stair has cast-iron stick balusters, and a good early 20th-century cast-iron range is located in the former basement kitchen.

Attached to the front basement is an area of balustrades. Litfield House is an outstanding example of an 1830s villa, marking the beginning of a notable group of ashlar villas along Litfield Place, including numbers 8 & 9 and The Promenade.