Sidholme

Sidholme is a Gothicised villa built in 1826 for the Earl of Buckingham, with later extensions and alterations. The main house is stuccoed and stands three stories high, with an attic. It has three gables, the central one smaller, featuring ornamental bargeboards and finials. A one-bay extension to the west provides a symmetrical appearance on the ground and first floors, mirroring the gables above. A balcony with an elaborate Victorian cast-iron balustrade, supported by iron columns with tracery brackets, runs across the first floor. The upper floor has three windows, the outer ones being two-light marginal glazed casements with pointed tops and drip moulds; the central window is a marginal glazed casement within a cambered recess. Four windows on the first floor are arranged as two canted bays with cambered marginal lights and tent roofs in a "Chinoiserie" style. Two French windows are also present, also with drip moulds. The ground floor wall has thin, stucco blind arcading with colonettes and pointed cusped arches. Later 19th-century transomed casements and a front door are incorporated.

An east wing, set back and decreasing in height from three to one story, extends from the main block. This wing is punctuated by two service blocks, one with a raised pediment over its centre and the other with a low-pitched slate roof. The fenestration has been altered but on the pedimented block are three casement windows grouped centrally on the first floor, with a pediment over the middle one.

The west front, the main entrance, is an asymmetrical cement-rendered elevation of two and three stories, again with three gabled bays and ornamental bargeboards and finials. A two-story, projecting gabled porch features a six-light bay window with a panelled apron above a door set in a moulded pointed arch. Fenestration is irregular with later alterations, including bay windows. Some casements retain marginal glazing and drip moulds. A balcony and veranda extend from the south front for one bay.

A Music Room, added by the Earl of Buckingham around 1826, projects from the north side. This is a tall, stucco-faced block on an elongated Greek cross plan, with canted ends and tall round-headed sash windows with intact glazing bars. The interior is Neo-classical with Rococo elements, featuring painted decoration (partly in grisaille), gilded stucco work, panelled pilasters, a high domical vault, two columned marble fireplaces with elaborate mirrors above, a "Gothic" organ case, a fine chandelier, and a broad staircase with turned balusters that rises to the first floor. Sidholme was the boyhood home of Professor F. A. Lindemann, Viscount Cherwell. The house is part of a group of early to mid 19th century villas situated in a residential cul-de-sac.