Mr Lanyon'S Almhouses And Walls Surrounding Garden To East

Almshouses and garden walls, built in 1726 for Mr. Lanyon. The building is constructed of painted slatestone rubble with granite sills, oak lintels, and windows. The roof is covered in flipped scantle slate, sloping very low to the rear. There are tall rendered chimneys, each with two flues over the side walls, and a central axial chimney with four flues. The original design comprised two pairs of single-cell units, with a central stair between each pair and a narrow, possibly communal, service area connected to a continuous rear catslide roof. The building is two storeys high, with a symmetrical six-window east front, arranged as two identical three-window fronts, and two doorways towards the middle of each. The doorways have 20th-century doors with two glazed top panels. All windows are three-light casements, likely with original oak frames and mullions, featuring internal chamfers and stops. Lintels over the first-floor windows have a bowtell moulding. A dated stone name plaque, with raised letters and an "S" shaped like a bird, is located on the first floor. The rear of the building is blind, but light is emitted through old iron skylights in the roof. Inspection of the third almshouse from the left revealed considerable original structure and detail, including ovolo-moulded oak ceiling beams, ovolo-moulded muntins, a plank partition, and a two-panel door to a first-floor room with ovolo-moulded panels and one original nailed strap hinge. The original roof structure was not inspected. Granite coped garden walls flank the front, linked to the house by a slate-roofed doorway to the left, featuring an old ledged door with iron strap hinges and a wooden latch, and an earth closet with a slate roof to the right. A return wall, parallel to the front and with an entrance, has rubble coping. It is believed the ground floor was intended for men and the first floor for women. The building is currently divided into four units, each with ground and first-floor rooms. Despite some conversion, it remains a very intact building, retaining its essentially simple but functional design.