Twitchen House

Twitchen House

A large house built in 1881 for Dr Longstaff, designed in the Old English and Jacobethan style. The building is constructed of squared rubble with ashlar dressings to the openings, combined with planted timber framing and slate-hanging to the upper storeys. The roof is of scantle slate with a range of moulded brick stacks of varying heights—some with two shafts, others with three or four, all topped with corbelled caps.

The house has a complex, irregular plan dominated by three large parallel gable-ended cross-wings. The wing to the right is set back and separated from the other two by a connecting part of the entrance hall, with two gable-ended projections facing north in the angle of the rear projection. Two further gable-ended projections project at each end. The building rises to two storeys with an attic storey, featuring carved bargeboards—some with moulded apex finals and moulded bressumers to the jettied gable ends. The south gable end is particularly ornate. Windows are disposed asymmetrically across the façades, mostly mullioned and transomed with small panes arranged in various diamond, lozenge and square pattern cames. First floor windows are chiefly timber with moulded mullions, while ground floor windows have splayed stone mullions and transoms.

A single-storey porch on the west side spans the angle of the recessed right-hand entrance hall and cross-wing. The porch surround is double-chamfered with a four-centred arch, foliated spandrels and a sculpted griffin in high relief to the right side of a debased fleur-de-lys frieze. A heraldic shield in a stone panel above bears the 1881 date. To the right of the porch sit two 3-light windows with stained glass in the upper part of the central transomed lights. The cross-wing to the right breaks forward slightly, with an attic window over a large 2-storey canted bay window containing stained glass. The gable-ended projection at the right end has a grotesque head carved in the coving of the jetty above a 3-light oriel window. A single-storey parapeted extension stands in the right-hand angle of the projection. On the east side, this cross-wing displays an attic 3-light window over two 6-light windows. A decorated rainwater head marked C B L A 8 8 D is positioned in the angle.

Much of the original interior decoration and fittings remain intact, including Morris details and de Morgan tiled grates. Geometrical-patterned plaster ceilings adorn the principal rooms in the south wing and entrance hall, where most features are concentrated. The principal room features bolection moulded panels of gold-embossed leather with plasterwork frieze above. A minstrel gallery on the south side comprises an arcade of three semi-circular arches, richly carved and supported on turned balusters. A richly carved chimneypiece incorporates some late 16th or early 17th century panelling. The ante-room also has a decorated plasterwork ceiling and richly carved chimneypiece with Atlantes figures. Two adjacent 4-centred arched doorways with foliated spandrels, retaining original painted decorations, give access to the entrance hall, which contains a large staircase with barleysugar balusters and large newel posts topped with acorn finials. The dining-room features a screen with a central 4-centred arch supported on colonnettes. Gabled attic rooms in the south cross-wing have round-arched doorways and barrel ceilings supported on colonnades of turned balusters with carved heads in the capitals. The master bedroom contains a carved chimneypiece. Stained glass is by Selwyn Image. A painted mural depicting a scene from the Canterbury Tales, now located in the kitchen, forms part of the original scheme.