Spring Gardens

House. Built around the late 17th or early 18th century, with additions made in the mid to late 18th century and the mid-19th century. The house is constructed of stone rubble with rag slate and asbestos slate roofs, featuring truncated brick end stacks. The building’s layout is complex, and the order of the additions is not entirely clear. The original section appears to have been a two-room house with a passage running through, the left room heated by an end stack, the right room by a lateral stack, and the chamber above the right room also having an end stack. Around the early to mid-18th century, a service wing was added to the rear of the left room, containing a small dairy and a large kitchen with its own end stack, alongside a staircase in a small projection between the rear wing and the front part of the house; this staircase was likely replaced in the later 18th century. Furthermore, around the late 18th century, a one-room wing was added to the rear of the passage and right-hand room, heated by a rear lateral stack. In the mid-19th century, a small one-room cottage was added to the rear of the right-hand wing.

The front of the building is symmetrical with three windows and a central entrance featuring an open Tuscan porch and a 19th-century six-panel door with a fanlight above. There are two early 19th-century 12-pane sash windows on the ground floor and three late 18th-century 12-pane sash windows on the first floor. A wide early 19th-century three-light casement is located in the side wall of the right-hand rear wing.

Inside, there’s a wide stair hall with a passage extending to the rear. A circa early 19th-century segmental hall arch features fluted pilasters, and an early 19th-century staircase with turned balusters and a wreathed rail. Above the staircase is an oval roof light. The left-hand room has 18th-century panelling, a dado rail, and an eared architrave framing a 18th-century fireplace with a 20th-century grate. A moulded cornice from the mid to late 18th century, decorated with roundels in the corners, is also present. The right-hand room features an early 19th-century plaster cornice, and a late 19th-century Delable slate chimney-piece. In the rear wing on the left, there are heavy, roughly chamfered cross beams that appear to be reused timber. The first floor has almost complete 18th-century raised and fielded panelled doors. The chamber above the right-hand room has a heavy, moulded early 18th-century cornice. A room on the first floor of the rear left-hand wing was remodelled in the late 19th century with a marble chimney-piece and an ornate plaster cornice.

The roof structure above the front range dates back to the late 17th century, comprising five trusses, mortised at the apexes and likely with tie beams. Carpenter’s marks are still visible. Four trusses above the rear left wing are likely mid-19th century, with cambered collars lapped and bolted onto the face of the principals. The roof structure above the right-hand wing is inaccessible.