Colestocks House Including Garden Boundary Wall Adjoining To East

Colestocks House is a hotel with origins in the late 17th century, possibly earlier, though it was substantially rebuilt in the early to mid 19th century with further alterations in the late 19th century. The building is constructed of plastered brick, possibly with some cob or stone rubble, and is topped with a thatch roof. It features stone rubble and brick stacks with 19th-century brick chimneyshafts.

The house follows a large L-plan with the main block facing south-east and a 3-room layout. The south-west end room serves as the hotel dining room and has a projecting gable-end stack. The large central room functions as a sitting room and features an axial stack backing onto the right end entrance lobby, which contains the main staircase. A parlour crosswing projects forward from the left front corner with an outer lateral stack. Evidence suggests the main block derives from a 16th-century 3-room-and-through-passage plan house, with the sitting room occupying the original hall and the dining room occupying an inner room parlour. The inner room parlour shows evidence of refurbishment in the late 17th century. The parlour crosswing was probably newly built in the early to mid 19th century. The house rises to two storeys with attics and includes 20th-century service outshots on the left end.

The south-east facing front is regular but not symmetrical, with a 4:2-window arrangement. All first floor windows are 9-pane sashes. The ground floor window in front of the wing is a late 19th to early 20th-century canted bay window with a moulded entablature containing a horned 2-pane sash. The two central ground floor windows of the main block are French windows with margin panes. To the left is a casement with glazing bars, and to the right is the main front doorway containing 19th-century panelled double doors. A verandah spans the front, featuring a gabled arch above each window and doorway; these arches are said to be secondary, dating from when wooden shingles replaced the thatch roof. A timber box gutter on shaped brackets runs around the eaves. The main block roof is gable-ended while the crosswing roof is hipped at the front. A 2-storey gabled projection at the back appears to be a late 17th-century porch to the rear of the original passage and includes 19th-century shaped bargeboards. A rear dormer window lights the upper storey. The rear of the crosswing includes a 19th-century brick 2-centred arch doorway containing a Gothic style door.

The interior is almost entirely the result of early to mid 19th-century refurbishment, retaining good joinery and architectural detailing from that period, including an open well staircase with stick balusters and mahogany handrail. The roof structure is also 19th-century. The only exposed earlier feature is the dining room fireplace, which is late 17th-century, built of brick with an ovolo-moulded oak lintel. Other 16th and 17th-century features are likely hidden beneath the thorough 19th-century modernisation, which means the house must be regarded as a good example of early to mid 19th-century work.

The front garden is enclosed by a probably 19th-century tall stone rubble wall on the east (road) side, topped with rounded brick coping. This wall includes a 2-centred arch doorway and, as it extends south-eastwards, ramps down to finish with a pair of rusticated granite gate posts with ball finials.