Belmont House

Belmont House is a house, now offices, dating from around 1800 and subsequently altered. It is constructed of granite rubble with a stucco facade painted white, with black dressings. The rear exhibits slate hanging. The building has a roughly L-shaped plan, comprising a main double-depth block and a service block to the left rear. It is two storeys high, with five bays, and includes a cellar; it sits on a low terrace. The design is symmetrical and in the classical style, featuring fluted corner pilasters and a Greek-key string course. The central doorway is accessed via a wooden Doric porch, which now lacks its front columns and has been replaced with iron posts; a later glazed and panelled inner porch protects a recessed doorway with set-in fluted Doric quarter-columns, panelled reveals, double doors, and an overlight featuring curved geometrical glazing bars arranged in an eye-like pattern. There are four windows on the ground floor and five above, all containing 12-pane sashes with moulded architraves. Projecting eaves are decorated with panels and roundels, topped by a shallow modillioned cornice. The hipped roof has no visible chimneys. Single-storey additions at each end are not of particular architectural interest. The rear elevation features a full-height, slate-hung, semi-circular stair turret with a curved 18-pane sashed window and projecting eaves. Inside, the two-bay entrance hall has an unusual semi-elliptical groin-vaulted ceiling supported by free-standing fluted Ionic columns, along with moulded and reeded architraves to doors and the stair window. A dog-legged staircase has an open string and stick balusters.