Kingston House

Kingston House is a country house dating from 1743, built for John Rowe after a fire. It is constructed from coursed stone rubble with freestone dressings and has a slate hipped roof of two spans, characterized by an unusual slate capping over the parapet. The building features a heavy moulded stone cornice and plain stone bands at floor level, along with a moulded plinth. The rectangular plan is arranged with three bays on the east front and five bays on the north front.

The east front is arranged with a 2:3:2 bay configuration, with the central section projecting. Sash windows with thick glazing bars are present, some restored and others blocked. Flat stone window arches and plain cills are characteristic. A central, pilastered stone doorway is topped by a Doric entablature and features fielded panel double doors, now accessed by 20th-century wooden steps. The west front mirrors the east, with the exception of blocked windows on the second floor of the centre bay. The central glazed and panelled door is complemented by a blind wooden false fanlight and stone brackets for a missing hood. The south front displays a complete range of sash windows with thick glazing bars, a central doorway with an early 19th-century panelled door and rectangular fanlight with glazing bars. Rainwater heads, featuring an angel and the date 1743, are present on both the east and north fronts. A large, round-arched ovolo moulded sandstone doorway provides access to the cellars. Large red brick double chimney stacks are topped with arching flues and stone cornices.

The interior of the house includes a drawing room with bolection panelling, pilasters, niches, a marble chimneypiece and a moulded plaster ceiling depicting a dove holding a sprig within a sunburst. A smaller ground-floor room features fielded panelling, a bolection chimneypiece, and a moulded plaster ceiling with high-relief branches within an oval. The hall is partly panelled, and a fine inlaid wooden staircase has three balusters per tread, leading to a panelled landing with a moulded cornice. A panelled first-floor room shows a good moulded plaster cornice and contains C18 wall paintings depicting landscape with birds and animals in a passage off the room. Another first-floor room has a marble chimneypiece with a moulded plaster overmantle depicting the Flight from Egypt and a pediment with two putti. A smaller room on the first floor retains C17 panelling with C18 painted marbling or graining. Vaulted stone cellars complete the structure. The Rowes, a Catholic family, once maintained a private chapel on the premises. The house likely incorporates elements of an earlier house on the same site.