Brookdale

Brookdale

A rectory, now an hotel, originally built in the early 19th century and substantially remodelled and extended around 1849–50, with further extensions later in the same century.

The building is constructed of stone rubble, rendered and lined out. The roofs are of dry slate with lead rolls to the ridges. The gabled end and gabled front are finished with pierced wavy bargeboards in wood, decorated with quatrefoils, pendants and finials. The right-hand end of the south front has an embattled parapet with moulded coping. The stacks are rendered, some with yellow brick diagonally set shafts.

The early 19th-century house was retained as a service range at the rear when, around 1840–50, a large Tudor Gothic style house was built at the front. This addition contains a central entrance hall leading to a stairwell behind a small office to the left; to the right of the entrance is a larger room, probably originally the dining room. The extreme left contains a cross wing with the drawing room and a smaller room behind. The early 19th-century range fills the angle between the main range and the back of the cross wing. At the right end of this early range is a large single-storey lean-to. At the left end of the 1840–50 range is a two-storey, one-room plan block, probably added later in the 19th century. The entire house, including the refashioned early 19th-century section, is finished in Tudor Gothic style.

The exterior presents two storeys in an asymmetrical five-window front (1:3:1 window bays). To the left, the broad gable end of the cross wing is slightly advanced and features a large four-light moulded mullion transom window with four-centred heads and decorated spandrels to the top lights, with a hoodmould showing a flower design in the stops. Above is a large oriel with similar lights and a heavily moulded corbelled soffit with a frieze of quatrefoils. The three-bay central section is symmetrical, with two steeply pitched gables left and right, each with small blind panels and hoodmoulds. The first-floor windows have moulded mullions and transoms with four-centred headed lights and hoodmoulds: the centre window has two lights, the left and right windows three lights each. The ground floor has two canted bays with similar windows and a central battlemented porch with diagonal buttresses at the corners, set off with lion gargoyles above. The battlements step up to a small gable over the centre, below which is a shield and ribbon. The heavily moulded four-centred arch doorway features leaf decoration in the spandrels and a hoodmould. The inner doorway has a semi-circular fanlight with radial glazing bars and a half-glazed 19th-century door. The late 19th-century one-window bay extension to the right has a three-light ground floor window and a two-light first floor window, both with transoms, four-centred arch lights and hoodmoulds.

The left-hand return has a wide gable to the right and a smaller gable to the left. On the ground floor right is a wide splayed bay window with battlements and a three-light window above; to the left are similar three-light and two-light windows on the ground and first floors respectively, all with four-centred arch lights and hoodmoulds.

The rear elevation shows the gabled cross wing to the right with two and three-light mullion transom windows with hoodmoulds and four-centred arch lights. Set back to the left is the early 19th-century house with a three-window range of twelve-pane sashes with hoodmoulds; on the ground floor right is a tripartite sash, and to the left of centre a 19th-century six-panel door with a rectangular fanlight and simple gabled porch. The left-hand gable end of this range has a truncated stack and a large single-storey lean-to extension. The back of the main front range to the left has twelve-pane sashes with a hoodmould and gabled attic dormers above. To the left is the later 19th-century extension with a lower hipped roof.

Interior features include a drawing room with a white marble Gothic chimneypiece with a moulded Tudor arch, a moulded egg and dart cornice, and a richly moulded ceiling board decorated with flowers and fruit and a centrepiece of acanthus leaves and a wreath. The window shutters here are intact. The office to the left of the entrance is plain with a replaced chimneypiece. The room to the right of the entrance has a Devonian marble chimneypiece with a four-centred arch, quatrefoil frieze and corbels supporting the mantel, and a moulded ceiling cornice with moulded trailing vine and centrepiece. The extreme right-hand room has a cast iron chimneypiece with an eagle in the frieze and pilasters depicting the arts, with musical instruments, artists' palettes and writer's quills. The walls are lined with boarding. The open-well open string staircase features octagonal newels with pendants, hollow chamfered stick balusters and a moulded oak handrail with mould capping over the newels. Most 19th-century joinery is intact on the ground floor. The first floor contains many earlier 19th-century moulded six-panel doors.