California House, Gate Piers And Gate

California House is a lodge that includes gate piers and a gate, now functioning as a private house. It was built around the 1840s and features shale rubble walls with granite quoins and freestone window jambs and arches. The gabled roofs are covered with asbestos slate and have projecting eaves and verges adorned with cusped and traceried bargeboards. There are brick chimneys located on the right side wall and the rear gable of the main structure. The building has an L-shaped plan consisting of three rooms and a porch projection, with later infill at the angle. It is designed in the Tudor style and is a single storey plus a basement at the rear, with part of the roof space converted for accommodation by the addition of a large roof dormer in the 20th century.

The east-facing road front features the main gable end, which has a scrolled and cusped bargeboard and a central bay window with four lights and ovolo-moulded mullions, with the roof renewed in the 20th century. The gable at the rear has a similar bargeboard. There is a steep dormered gable with an elaborate shaped bargeboard over a window projection to the right, which contains an original two-light window with arched lights forming simple Y-tracery within a steep four-centred arched opening, complete with a hoodmould above.

The entrance front, facing south, has a 20th-century alteration on the left but retains a gabled porch to the right of the middle. This porch features an intricate cusped and traceried bargeboard with carved flower cusps and an arched and braced open doorframe. A 20th-century door and sidelights are present. The gable end opposite, on the north side, has a similarly ornate bargeboard. To the right of the porch, there is another original single-light window with a hoodmould. The interior has not been inspected. Near the porch, there are 19th-century moulded granite gate piers that survive, along with a richly detailed close-barred and arcaded wooden gate. Despite some alterations in the 20th century, this lodge retains several original windows and exceptionally elaborate bargeboards.