West Wing And Centre House

West Wing and Centre House, Shaldon

Two houses, formerly one house, dating from around 1830 with late 19th-century and mid-20th-century alterations.

The buildings are constructed of painted stucco with decorative timber bargeboards. The West Wing is roofed in fibre cement slates with terracotta ridge tiles, while the Centre House is covered in natural slates. Two chimney stacks of modern brick are present.

The plan is broadly symmetrical with double depth, though the building is now divided down the centre and the precise nature of the resultant plan form is unclear.

The principal north elevation features two gabled bays of two storeys with an attic above. On the ground floor, two substantial canted bays of late 19th-century date contain four-pane horned sashes on each face, with the central face of the Centre House bay adapted to form a door to the garden. The first floor has tall two-casement windows of five panes with margin lights in each bay, set in chamfered reveals with flat hood moulds above. The attic contains two lancet windows with chamfered reveals and pointed hood moulds above. Both gables are finished with highly elaborate bargeboards featuring pendants with open cusp detail; those of Centre House project slightly forward.

The west elevation is of three bays and two storeys. The central gabled bay projects forward with an enclosed gabled porch at ground floor. The porch has a chamfered entrance with a Tudor arched head and a vaulted interior with an encaustic tiled floor. Above, decorative bargeboards with open cusping and a central pendant embellish the gable. On the first floor is a three-light mullion and transom window set in chamfered reveals with a flat hood mould above. The southern bay has a three-light mullion and transom window on the ground floor with single-light casements set in chamfered reveals, with horizontally set bronze rods behind the single panes suggesting they formerly contained leaded lights. At first floor is a two-light casement window with bronze rods set in chamfered reveals with a flat hood mould above. The northern bay is blind, accommodating a projecting stack with a set-off at first floor; a shaft of modern brick continues above the eaves.

The rear south elevation, of two bays and two storeys, is less formal, with two modern windows and a glazed door to Centre House at ground floor and two two-light mullion and transom windows at first floor, both set in chamfered reveals.

An attached East Wing, possibly the former service range, lacks the strong stylistic characteristics of the West Wing and Centre House and has undergone significant alterations. It is not of special interest.

These buildings are designated as an early to mid-19th-century example of a Gothick villa that survives substantially intact, with good Gothick detailing, particularly to the bargeboards and windows.