Killiow House

Killiow House is a country house with an 18th-century and earlier core that was substantially remodelled around 1850, possibly by Paxton. The principal elevations are constructed in granite ashlar with dressed granite architectural detail; other elevations are rubble. The building has hipped slate roofs with parapets and a surrounding central valley, with brick chimneys rising over cross walls.

The plan comprises two equal principal reception rooms flanking a central entrance vestibule that leads to a large stair hall. Two further principal reception rooms lie beyond the right-hand room, forming an L-shaped reception area. Service rooms are positioned behind, with servants' accommodation in a rear wing. The building rises two storeys over the reception area and three storeys over part of the service wing.

The symmetrical south-west entrance front, added around 1850, displays a 2:1:2 bay composition. It features a plinth, rusticated quoins, a stepped first-floor sill band, and a wide moulded parapet cornice with blocking course. Ground-floor windows are recessed with moulded pediments on consoles above them, while first-floor windows have moulded hoods on consoles. All windows are original circa 1850 hornless 12-pane sashes. A wide central doorway sits within a distyle-in-antis Doric porte cochère, with a segmental arch over the opening. The original panelled doorway has a marginal paned overlight and flanking sidelights with reticulated glazing. Acorn corner finials to the main parapets and ball corner finials over the porch parapet are 20th-century additions.

The nearly symmetrical south-east garden front displays a 1:3:1 bay composition dating from the early 19th century, with a central three-window bowed projection that is slightly wider to the left following the circa 1850 refronting to the south-west. This front has a plinth, plain sill string, and parapet matching the south-west elevation. Windows sit in plain ashlar surrounds with granite lintels, except for segmental arches over the ground-floor left and right openings. All windows are original 12-pane hornless sashes; those on the ground floor left and right are tripartite sashes within wider openings with blind tympana above.

The interior of the reception area is of considerable quality, containing early and mid-19th-century doors, doorcases, window shutters, panelling, and ceiling cornices and bands. The entrance vestibule features a moulded coffered ceiling, stone-flagged floor, and a fine, possibly resited, 18th-century chimneypiece with dentils in the entablature. A mid-19th-century pediment with dentils stands over the doorway into the stair hall. Six-panelled mahogany doors have bead moulding within the panels, with similar detail to panelled reveals and dado panelling.

The stair hall contains a fine cantilevered open-well open-string stone stair with ornate cast-iron splat balusters and a mahogany handrail wreathed over the newel. Landings on two floors link the two-storey reception area to the three-storey service area. The landings now have added support from later Roman Doric columns on pedestals, with a lantern above. The right-hand reception room has a fine marble chimneypiece in the French style, featuring carved consoles, shell decoration to the frieze, and a horseshoe iron grate. The ceiling displays a fine trailing vine band and pediments similar to that in the vestibule over doorways. The central room to the garden front with bowed windows contains fine neo-classical detail and is linked to a further room beyond with similar detail and an anthemion ceiling band.

Killiow represents an interesting mid-19th-century refashioning of an essentially early-19th-century house, well situated overlooking an informal parkland landscape.