Asherne

Asherne is a small country house, probably dating from circa 1836 according to deeds, which underwent extensive remodelling around 1860 when Mrs Packe purchased the property from the Herberts.

The house is constructed of stuccoed stone with rusticated stucco to the ground floor. It is roofed with slate in a hipped form with deep eaves and moulded cast-iron gutters. The stacks are axial and positioned to the sides, consisting of tall groups of rendered brick octagonal shafts with cornices.

The building is arranged around a service yard at the rear, with principal rooms facing south towards the sea. Services are contained in a wing to the rear left, while the drawing room occupies the front of a projecting cross-wing on the right, with the stairhall behind it entered through a porch on the right side. A passageway running through the rear of the cross-wing provides access to the service yard. The right-hand cross-wing is probably a circa 1860 addition and formed part of the extensive remodelling. The house is built on top of a high cliff overlooking the sea.

The exterior is two storeys and asymmetrical. The south front comprises three bays to one, with the right-hand bay projecting. An ornate cast-iron balcony with intersecting tracery spans the entire front, supported on thin cast-iron spiral-moulded posts and large cast-iron brackets on moulded corbels. The first-floor windows are nineteenth-century French casements with margin panes and integral sliding shutters in boxes with moulded cornices. The centre-right first-floor window is a small casement with louvred shutters. At the centre-left of the ground floor sits a doorway with a glazed door and panelled shutters, flanked by nineteenth-century four-pane sashes with louvred shutters. To the right, in the projecting bay, is a square bay window beneath the balcony, fitted with mullion-transom windows.

The right-hand (east) return is the entrance side, comprising one bay, one bay, and two bays. The centre bay features a gilded two-storey porch with a moulded round-headed doorway fitted with nineteenth-century panelled double doors and a semi-circular fanlight with radiating glazing bars. Above this is a cast-iron balcony and French casement similar to those on the front. To the left, the balcony continues around from the south front, with first and ground-floor windows being French casements with louvred shutters matching those at the front. To the right of the porch are two similar windows with louvred shutters and a moulded round-headed doorway to the service yard at the back. On the roof above is a square wooded gable-ended bellcote.

The left-hand (west) return has twelve-pane sashes on the first floor with louvred shutters and a French casement below, the latter enclosed within a twentieth-century conservatory. A high stone wall to the left screens a backyard.

The interior appears to be intact and complete with its nineteenth-century joinery. The large square hall features a high domed plastered ceiling and a timber gallery with small turned balusters. A wide straight staircase rises opposite the gallery. The drawing room contains a mid-nineteenth-century stone chimneypiece with later nineteenth-century painted flower decoration and a later nineteenth-century iron grate with decorative tiles. The room has a moulded plaster cornice with ceiling border and attractive late nineteenth-century wallpaper painted with cornflowers. The bedroom above is decorated with painted chinoiserie wallpaper and has a moulded plaster vaulted ceiling with flowers in deep relief, together with a white marble chimneypiece fitted with a tiled cast-iron grate. The back staircase features stick balusters and a turned newel.