Kingsdown House

Kingsdown House is a Grade II listed building that was originally a lunatic asylum, constructed in the early 18th and 19th centuries. It features ashlar stonework and slate roofs. The left section, known as No 1, dates back to the early 18th century and has coped gables and end wall stacks. This three-storey part has a formal front with three windows, channelled angle pilasters, moulded string courses, and a cornice that projects at the pilasters. The parapet is adorned with corner urns. The windows are segmental headed 12-pane sashes set in raised bead-moulded surrounds with keystones, and those on the ground and first floors have cornices above the keystones where the string course breaks forward. The central entrance features a raised moulded segmental headed doorcase within an early 19th-century ashlar Corinthian columned porch. Above the entrance, there is a segmental pedimented clock gable with channelled pilasters and a ball finial, likely from the 19th century. To either side, there are two-storey wings with one window each, containing early 19th-century unmoulded 12-pane sashes above, with a door to the right and a window to the left in an early 18th-century raised moulded surround. The rear has a central projection with a hipped roof, hipped dormer, and a two-storey section with two windows, featuring upper bead-moulded flush surrounds. No 2, located to the right of No 1, is a 19th-century ashlar building that is two-storey with a three-window range, moulded string course, moulded cornice, and parapet, and it has plate glass sashes. Kingsdown House served as a private asylum from at least the 18th century, with evidence suggesting it had been in operation for 200 years by the time of a parliamentary select committee in 1815-16.