Avonleigh

Avonleigh is a villa, currently used as a house, likely built in the late 1860s with additional bays added around the 1890s and some renovations in the late 20th century. The exterior is stuccoed and features a hipped slate roof with stacks that have rendered shafts and platbands. The main block has a large rectangular plan, with a staircase rising at right angles to the entrance hall. A service wing is located to the right of the entrance front but is in separate occupation.

The building is two storeys tall with a cellar and has deep eaves supported by paired brackets, along with pilasters, an eaves band, and a moulded string course. The windows are fitted with 4-pane sashes that include horizontal glazing bars. The entrance front is asymmetrical with three windows and a one-window wing to the right, which has been extended. The main block features rusticated quoins, and the centre porch bay is slightly advanced, topped with a hipped slate roof and a finial. The shallow projecting porch includes ball finials and a round-headed doorway with a plain overlight and a four-panel front door. Above the porch, there are paired round-headed windows with plain proud architraves. To the left of the porch is a projecting stack and a first-floor sash window with a moulded architrave, while the right side features one ground-floor and one first-floor sash window. The service wing to the right has similar sashes. There is a rebuilt conservatory on the front to the left of the porch.

The garden elevations maintain the same style, with the addition of ground-floor projecting bays that are either canted or square, featuring dentil cornices and parapets. The three-window rear garden elevation includes one ground-floor tripartite sash with a dentil frieze and cornice on consoles, possibly reflecting the earlier bay windows, and one round-headed window with a moulded architrave and keyblock.

Inside, the villa is very intact, with the ground and first floors largely unaltered. It features original joinery, including doors and skirtings, good plaster ceiling friezes, and mostly original chimneypieces with tiled insets. The porch has attractive tiling, and the staircase includes turned balusters and newels. Avonleigh is a good example of a middle-sized villa in Torquay with a very well-preserved interior.