Conkwell Grange

Conkwell Grange is a country house dated 1907, designed by Sir E.G. Dawber for J. Thornton. It is constructed of squared rubble stone with ashlar dressings, featuring tall hipped stone slate roofs and prominent rubble stone stacks with ashlar quoins. The house is two and a half storeys high and built in a late 17th-century style, exhibiting a symmetrical garden front, an asymmetrical entrance front, and an L-shaped service court.

The garden front has two advanced wings with hipped dormers and three dormers in the centre. The two-five-two bay arrangement includes sashes with segmental heads set in ashlar architraves with keystones. A raised ashlar band and modillion eaves cornice are also present. The centre-piece features French windows on both floors; the ground floor window has a bolection moulded surround with a keystone and consoles supporting a balcony with iron railings. The upper floor window is within an architrave with a triple keystone, and a segmental pediment breaks the eaves above. Oval plaques bearing the initials EM and MM (for Sir E. and Lady Milborne, owners in the mid-20th century) flank the centre on either side of the ground floor. The service wing, set back to the right, extends with a three-window range incorporating a shaped gable over the centre window and a gable with a projecting balustraded ground floor and a canted wooden bay above. A large canted bay with sashes is located on the west end wall of the main house.

The entrance front is characterised by a projecting wing to the left, screening the service court, and a slight projection to the right, both hipped with hipped dormers. A projecting porch gable, to the right of the centre, has Ionic angle pilasters, an entablature displaying the date, and a shaped gable with a bullseye window above. This gable is in a late 17th-century style with a crowning pediment. A first-floor three-light window and a ground-floor double door are set within a moulded architrave with a large open segmental pediment and a heavily carved floral roundel. A one-window range is to the right of the porch, with a two-window range to the left. A two-window range extends from the projecting wing, and a balustraded wall runs north to a pyramid-roofed game larder in the corner of the service court. The east face of the service wing features a two-window range facing the court, and a tall pyramid-roofed stair tower in the angle of a plainer south range of the service court.

The interior appears largely unaltered from its original design. A fine panelled room in an early 18th-century style occupies the centre of the ground floor, showing ceiling plasterwork in the manner of E. Gimson. The house also contains pedimented doorcases, panelled doors, and an oak dog-leg staircase at the west end.