Otterham House

Otterham House is a private house, originally a rectory, dating from circa 1830-40. It is constructed of local shale rubble with granite quoins, lintels, and a plinth. Slate window cills are present, and part of the south side and rear wall are slate hung. The roof is of rag slate, hipped, with widely spaced shaped brackets to the deep eaves, black-glazed ridge tiles, and no hip tiles. Rendered axial chimney stacks have granite caps.

The building has a deep, almost square, double-depth plan. The layout includes two principal front rooms, a central entrance passage, a stairhall behind the right-hand room, and a servants’ stair within a side entrance lobby behind the left-hand room. There are three service rooms at the rear—a kitchen to the left, a servants' hall in the centre, and a pantry to the right. The house has two storeys and cellars.

The east front is symmetrical with three bays. Original 19th-century eight-pane sashes are on the first floor, and original two-light French doors with moulded wooden mullions and transoms are on the ground floor. Each ground floor casement has three large panes, with overlights above, and granite cills that continue as a plinth. The plain central doorway retains its original 19th-century four-panel door and a rectangular fanlight of two panes. The south return, partly slate hung, has one sixteen-pane sash and a 20th-century pane sash, along with a single stone rubble porch with a hipped slate roof; the right side wall of the porch extends forward as a screen wall to the front garden with an integral mounting block. The north return has a large round-headed stair sash with glazing bars, two small twelve-pane sashes, and a cross mullion-transom window illuminating the pantry. The rear (west) elevation has two windows disposed toward the left, with twenty-pane sashes, and a three-light wooden mullion window to the pantry on the ground floor. All windows retain their original 19th-century frames.

The interior joinery is largely intact, including panelled doors, moulded door frames, and staircases. There are no moulded plaster cornices. The hall passage features an elliptical arch. The narrow stairhall houses an open-well staircase with stick balusters, a moulded handrail wreathed over the curtail, and an open string with shaped tread ends. The back servants’ stair, rising from the cellars, has turned newels with bun-shaped finials and stick balusters. The left-hand front room retains its original black slate chimney-piece with moulded pilasters and frieze, and moulded brackets supporting the mantelshelf. The right-hand front room has a similar chimney-piece with large consoles instead of pilasters. The kitchen fireplace has a large single slate chimney-piece with chamfered edges.