Monks House

Monks House is a house dating from the late 18th century and the 19th century, featuring an ashlar front and a hipped slate low-pitched roof with ridge and west end stacks. The building has two storeys and an attic. The formal ashlar north front has four windows and is two-storeys high, adorned with a giant order of Ionic pilasters, an entablature with paterae in the frieze over the pilasters, a dentil cornice, and a blind balustrade. There is a moulded sill course above a plinth, with 12-pane ground floor windows set in architraves that have cornices, fluted friezes, and corner paterae. A guilloche band runs along the first floor, which has six-pane upper windows in architraves.

The east front is rendered and lined to resemble ashlar, featuring an ashlar pier at the north-east angle that continues the mouldings from the north front, and a plainer south-east ashlar pier. This elevation is off-centre with three windows, two storeys, and an attic, showcasing flush stone surrounds to the windows and plain coved cornices. There is a moulded course over the first floor and a plain stone course over the attic. The attic and first floor have six-pane windows, while the ground floor to the right has 12-pane windows. The centre windows on the ground and first floors are blank. The left side of the ground floor features an arched doorway with a traceried fan, set in a large mid-19th century ashlar porte-cochere, which has paired columns at the front and single columns at the rear, along with a moulded cornice, damaged moulding, and a removed balustrade.

On the south side, there is a projection to the right with 12-pane sashes on each floor, a plain cornice, and a parapet. To the left, there is a first floor 4-12-4 pane stair light with a segmental head in the centre, a sill course, and a slate-roofed verandah on the ground floor. A two-storey addition from the 19th century is located to the west. The west side is made of coursed rubble stone with a ridge stack, random spaced sashes, and a single-storey outbuilding projecting with two columns on the south side. A south-west rear wing has been demolished. The Monks estate has records dating back to the 14th century and was held by the Tropenell and Eyre families in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Danvers family from 1616 to 1711, and the Dickinson family from 1711 to 1865. The house was likely built around 1780 for B. Dickinson, with later 19th century alterations made for Hon. J.T. Goldney.