The Gables And Attached Garden Walls And Gate Piers

This is a substantial detached villa, built around 1857 by Joseph Friendship for Richard Bligh. It is constructed of random rubble with painted stone quoins and has slated, multi-gable roofs with elaborate carved bargeboards, all with differently patterned pendants, finials, and three tall rubble stacks with stone quoins on the southern gable. The house is asymmetrical, with the main entrance on the eastern facade.

The building is two storeys and an attic, with three single-storey gabled projections added in the 20th century to the south. The fenestration is irregular. The main, eastern facade features a two-window projecting gabled bay to the left, a single-window entrance bay, and a single-window bay with a large gabled dormer to the right. A prominent rubble entrance porch has a steeply pitched slate roof with elaborate bargeboards, trefoil pendants, and a finial. It has trefoil lights to each return and a pointed arch doorway with a square-headed, panelled and studded door. Above the door is a fanlight with margin glazing and V tracery, with pointed sidelights. Ground-floor windows have transom and mullion casements with lugged surrounds, while upper-floor windows have pointed casements, except for the window above the entrance, which is square-headed. Other elevations are in a similar style, with a north elevation featuring a ground-floor canted transom and mullion bay window with a mutule cornice and elaborate cast-iron cresting of trefoil design. A flat-roofed staircase projection has a pointed window with margin and Y tracery, located between the north and west elevations.

The interior retains its original open-well staircase with turned balusters and cast-iron newel posts. Principal rooms have original plaster cornices and ceilings, plus one fire surround with a mantel shelf supported on shafted corbels.

Attached random rubble garden walls run along the west side, capped with stone and featuring a square-headed doorway with a studded door. The walls sweep inwards to form the main entrance, flanked by stone quoined gate piers with cross-gabled caps and trefoil gable ends, topped by a timber field-type gate. The Gables forms a group with the nearby Church of the Holy Trinity and the churchyard lychgate. It is considered a good example of its style, notable for its enriched detail.