The Mansion House And Attached Forecourt Railings

The Mansion House is a town house dating to circa 1760, designed by Thomas Edwards for Thomas Daniell, a merchant and mine owner. It is constructed of granite ashlar to the basement, with freestone ashlar above, and has a hidden roof behind a parapet, with brick end stacks and a scantle slate roof over the carriageway. The building has a double-depth plan with a central entrance hall, leading to service stairs and large stair halls. It comprises three storeys over a basement and features a symmetrical five-window street front, including a carriage entrance on the right.

The basement forms the plinth; the central doorway is round-arched, with engaged Tuscan columns and an open pediment above an intricate fanlight. A heavy moulded cornice with dentils sits above the second-floor windows, with a moulded parapet cornice and flat arches over early 19th-century hornless 12-pane sashes. The right side has an elliptical-arched vault spanning the carriage entrance, above which is an 18th-century Venetian bay window with thick glazing bars. The rear elevation has canted bay windows.

The interior retains much of its original high-quality carpentry, joinery and plasterwork. This includes an open-well staircase with an open string, key pattern brackets, a moulded and ramped handrail and scrolled wrought-iron balusters. A Venetian stair window features fluted Ionic columns over a turned balustrade and a frieze with a Vitruvian scroll. Decorated wall panels with broken pediments containing shells are also present, along with a moulded stairwell ceiling with lozenge panels. Most rooms have cornices and chimney-pieces; the first-floor rear room has a chimney-piece with a shouldered architrave and cornice mantel, intricately carved with a naturalistic depiction of a dog in a landscape. Original doors and doorcases are present, some with pediments. The ground floor features ceilings with modillioned cornices. The service stair has a chinoiserie geometric balustrade. The entrance vestibule has a coved ceiling and a smaller inner vestibule with a saucer-shaped dome over six round-arched doorways.

The broad front steps have a curved wrought-iron balustrade with urn finials to the newel stanchions, which return as railings to surround the forecourt.