Townsend House

Townsend House is a former hospital manager's house built in 1838 and designed by George Wightwick. In 1898, a porch and rear extension were added for the Asylum Board by Silvanus Trevail. The building is two storeys high and constructed from coursed and squared polychrome stone, featuring a granite plinth, sills, and a mid-floor string. It has shallow freestone segmental arches and a rag slate hipped roof with projecting eaves supported by brackets, along with two brick axial stacks. The plan is double-depth and L-shaped, with a regular three-window front. The original twelve-pane hornless sashes are present, and there is a central doorway with a 20th-century glazed and panelled door set within a late 19th-century flat-roofed glazed transomed porch that has a moulded cornice and moulded corners and frames. To the right of the porch is a wide doorway with a pair of cast-iron latticed doors. The right-hand return, facing the road, features a brick four-centred arched doorway with a framed and planked door on the left and an original sash above a late 19th-century canted bay window with horned sashes set within moulded architraves. The left-hand return has an original first-floor sash and a four-panel door. The rear includes original sashes and a four-panel door. The interior has not been inspected, but it is noted to have an open-string staircase with stick balusters and a mahogany handrail that is scrolled over the newel, a moulded ceiling cornice in the entrance hall, and slatted shelves on turned legs in the porch.