Alpenfels

Alpenfels is a house dating from circa 1872, built for Francis F Fox, the Chief Engineer of the Bristol and Exeter Railway. The house is constructed of snecked and hammer-dressed Pennant stone with Bath stone quoins, and has a gabled, low-pitched roof with alternating bands of plain and fish scale tiles. The plan is rectangular. It is an example of Swiss Cottage style architecture. The house has two storeys with an attic, and a three-window range to the gabled front. A gabled porch has a chamfered pointed-arched doorway with a finial and decorative fretted bargeboards with outer pendentives. Stone lintels are above the windows, with flanking shutters, and richly decorated, bracketed openwork balconies to the first and second floors. There is an exterior staircase and a dormer with decorative tile cheeks and bargeboards. Large carved brackets support the wide overhanging eaves, which have similarly decorative bargeboards on all elevations. The rear elevation features latticed casements to an oriel window and two-story square bay windows. The interior upper floor has panelled doors and latticed woodwork, while the ground floor includes panelling, Gothic-style fireplaces, and Minton tile floors. It is a fine, dramatically-situated example of a building in this style.