Pitt House

Pitt House is a large country house dating from 1841, designed by George Gilbert Scott and William Butterfield Moffat. It is constructed from squared and dressed grey limestone, with a granite plinth and quoins, and cream limestone dressings to the windows, doors, strings, and gables. The roof is slate-covered. The main block is symmetrical, facing southeast, with a further block containing billiard rooms and a ballroom situated across a courtyard to the northwest, added around 1880. These blocks are linked by a single-storey wing. A former coach house, now a dwelling, stands at the west corner of the main blocks, replicating the style and detailing of the house.

The main facade exhibits an E-plan and Jacobean style, presenting a three-gabled, two-and-a-half-storey appearance, with two-storey crenellated bows on each wing, featuring 8-light transomed windows with plate glass, some with thin horizontal bars. A projecting central porch has a 3-light oriel window with a crenellated top, supported by a moulded corbel. The wall plane between the wings and porch incorporates 3-light ground floor windows, 2-light first floor windows with mullions and transoms, and small single-light openings in decorative gables. Dutch gables on either side contain 2-light mullion and transom windows. A continuous moulded drip extends over the ground floor windows and door, stepping up above the openings, while the upper level of the bow windows has a string continued as a coping to the gables. Triple ashlar stacks with moulded skirts and cappings are positioned on the ridge either side of the porch, and double stacks of a similar design flank the end gables. The main entrance consists of a 2-leaf, part-glazed door recessed within the porch, set in a Tudor arch.

The rear wing, housing the ballroom and billiard room, features a square turret with a cross-gabled roof, connected to a main run of wing accessed by a flight of 10 granite steps leading to an externally placed pair of oak panelled doors within a Tudor arch, accompanied by a stopped drip and small plain shields. This wing has a roof with a decorative open parapet, and a large multi-light mullioned and transomed window at the southwest end with small diamond panes in rectilinear margins. The coach house wing has a central gable and a small end cross-gabled turret, mirroring the detailing of the main block.

At the time of resurvey, the interiors were undergoing conversion into flats, with some original features being retained, including the main open well staircase with heavy square moulded newels, square tapered balusters, and a moulded handrail. Pitt House represents a consistent, carefully designed, and richly detailed composition by G.G. Scott and W.B. Moffat, largely unchanged externally at the time of the survey.