Villa Borghese And Fuchsia Cottage

Villa Borghese and Fuchsia Cottage are a large villa with garden walls and gate piers, dating from around 1850. Later 19th-century alterations were made, and in 1909 the villa was divided into seven flats.

The villa is built of plastered rubble with a hipped slate roof and stacks with rendered shafts topped by cornices. The garden walls are of local grey limestone rubble, plastered, with plastered gate piers. The design is Italianate, reportedly based on a particular villa.

The main block has a double-depth rectangular plan with an entrance on the south side and a service block to the east. The symmetrical three-window entrance front is complemented by a later three-window canted bay to the right. Deep eaves and verges are supported by paired moulded brackets, and there are stuccoed quoins and a platband. The original entrance front is broken forward in the centre with a gable, and features a deep projecting cornice at first-floor level. The Doric distyle in antis porch has been altered with a round-headed arch cut through the entablature. A half-glazed front door has glazed side panels. The first-floor window above has a proud architrave, sill blocks and a segmental pediment resting on consoles. The triple windows on either side have similar architraves and floating cornices on brackets. The windows are now fitted with 20th-century plate glass sashes, although the ground-floor window on the left has been partly converted into a doorway. A later 19th-century projecting canted bay to the right has one ground floor window converted to a doorway. The service wing on the far right retains tripartite sashes.

The garden return on the left has three ground-floor six-over-nine-pane sashes (one converted into a door) and three first-floor recessed round-headed windows with sunk panels below the sills, moulded architraves and radial glazing bars. Round-headed niches are positioned between the windows, with all openings linked by moulded cornices.

The interior is said to be heavily altered, with the lower part of the staircase having been removed during conversion. Originally named Villa Borghese, as shown on Ordnance Survey maps.