Ashprington Nursing Home

Ashprington Nursing Home is a late 18th or early 19th century rectory, later converted into a nursing home around 1985. It is constructed of rendered stone rubble, with a rear wing purportedly of cob. The roof is slated and hipped, with red brick chimney shafts on the side walls. The original design was a double depth plan with two principal front rooms and a central entrance hall leading to a stairhall at the rear; the rear range may be of earlier origin. A single-storey, flat-roofed addition was built around 1985 on the right-hand side, at the angle with the rear wing, but the main house’s layout has largely been preserved.

The front façade is symmetrical, with three bays. The original tripartite sash windows feature glazing bars that diminish in height towards the top. Ground floor windows have 12 panes flanked by 4-pane sashes, first-floor windows have 9 panes flanked by 3 panes, and top-floor windows are casements with 6 panes flanked by 2 panes. A good-quality central doorway has a moulded architrave with fielded panel reveals, an entablature with a fluted frieze and dentilled cornice which projects forward and is supported by console brackets. The rear elevation is symmetrical with three windows, featuring 2-light sashes with glazing bars and a central, round-headed stair window on the first floor, containing an original sash with radial glazing bars. The service wing at the rear features a hipped roof and a lower, gable-ended roof at the rear. It has 19th-century 2- and 3-light casement windows with glazing bars. A 20th-century single-storey addition sits in the angle at the front and has a flat roof.

Inside, the narrow entrance hall has a segmented arch leading to an open-well staircase at the rear, which is a near dog-leg design with stick balusters, a moulded handrail ramped up to turned column newels, and an open string with scroll tread ends. Much of the original joinery has been replaced, but doorcases have largely survived. The left-hand front room retains a later 19th-century plaster cornice and a late 19th or early 20th century Georgian-style fireplace. Other rooms have been altered.