Beachcroft

Beachcroft is a house, built in 1839. It is now used as health authority offices. The house has solid, rendered walls, likely built on a stone rubble base, and slate roofs with old brick chimneys on each gable. It is one room wide and two rooms deep, with a central staircase accessed through a porch on the left side. The building is two storeys high, with a semi-basement and a garret.

The front of the house has a two-window arrangement. The windows have slightly curved heads and contain eight-paned sashes. A moulded board runs along the eaves. The porch on the left side has a round-arched doorway with a six-panelled door and a patterned fanlight. A plain sash window is situated in the upper storey.

The garden front, visible from Taw Vale and the riverside, has a rusticated basement with segmental-headed windows. To the left is a sash window with two upright glazing bars, and to the right, a small-paned wood casement. Upper-storey windows have sashes with nine panes below and six above, each with a patterned iron guard-rail in front. The entrance porch on this side is similar to the other, though the number of door panels may differ. On the right (north) side wall is a tall, round-arched stair window with small panes and radial glazing bars in the head, alongside two smaller pointed-arched windows with small panes in the gable.

Inside, the porch features a dado of decorated papier-mâché, and an inner door with coloured glass margin-panes. The geometrical wood staircase has thin square balusters, shaped step-ends and a voluted handrail at the bottom. The stairhall has a matching dado, a moulded cornice, and a foliated chandelier boss. A six-panelled door leads to the rear room, which has panelled shutters, a moulded cornice and a foliated chandelier boss. One section of the front room has been sub-divided and features an eight-pointed boss. The first-floor landing has six-panelled doors and a foliated boss. The rear room has a cast-iron Gothic basket-grate, an enriched cornice, a foliated boss and panelled shutters.

The semi-basement, accessible via old stone steps from the stairhall, has a stone-flagged central passage. A rear room was likely the former kitchen, featuring a fireplace and stone steps to the garden. A wine cellar has a vaulted ceiling. A pantry features slate shelves.

A historical note indicates that in 1986, the owners possessed a deed of 1839 describing the house as “lately erected” on Corporation land.