St Michaels Lodge And Rear Basement Court Railings

St Michael's Lodge and Rear Basement Court Railings

A large detached villa designed in 1827 by John Foulston, located in Stoke, Plymouth. The building is rendered stucco with slate-hanging to the rear elevation and a roof concealed behind a parapet with heavy moulded cornice. The rendered chimney stacks rise over cross walls.

The villa is executed in the Neo-Classical style. The plan is double-depth with three rooms at the front and a central stair hall positioned behind the central room. The entrance hall lies behind the right-hand room, accessing the staircase.

The exterior is two storeys over basement. The front elevation is symmetrical with a 1:3:1-window arrangement and a central bowed projection. Most original hornless sashes with glazing bars survive on all elevations. The ground-floor sashes are taller, with those to the left and right taking the form of tripartite windows with blind sidelights divided by pilasters beneath moulded hoods on consoles. The first-floor windows sit above, set within moulded eared architraves. Stucco detailing includes a plinth and tall entablature carried over giant pilasters flanking the bays, though old photographs indicate more elaborate detail was formerly present.

The right-hand return presents a symmetrical three-window entrance front with eared window openings at ground and first-floor levels, flanked by end pilasters under a similar entablature. This theme continues for one bay of the rear right-hand return elevation. A large central porch features a glazed tripartite doorway under a keyed segmental arch, with panelled pilasters under string courses to either side. A moulded entablature surmounts these elements, topped by a squat pediment flanked by large acroteria which return as parapet to the sides.

The rear elevation comprises a six-window range with blind windows to the left-hand bay and a tall round-arched stair window with fanlight head to the third bay from the left. The right-hand bay is presumed to be a slightly later addition.

The interior survives largely complete with significant features including a vaulted vestibule on four Doric columns, a modillion ceiling cornice to the hall, and an open-well staircase with open string, mahogany handrail with scrolled newel on stick balusters. Ground-floor rooms retain moulded and carved ceiling cornices with trailing bands, egg-and-dart moulding, and anthemion ornament to the kitchen. The first-floor rooms inspected feature moulded ceiling cornices and panelled doors with stepped architraves.

Simple original wrought-iron railings with arrow-head finials run along the basement court walls at the rear.

The lodge was designed as part of a group with the former St Michael's Terrace, which was the finest terrace of houses in Plymouth but was demolished following neglect in the 1970s. This building survives as an outstanding example of an early nineteenth-century architect-designed villa in the Greek Revival style within a national context. Between 1883 and 1970, the lodge served as a school, first operating as a boarding and day school for girls and later as a mixed preparatory school. It was the oldest private school in Plymouth.