St John'S Cottages, Including The Gateposts And Front Garden Railings

The St John's Cottages are a terrace of six houses, likely built in the 1860s and before 1870. They are constructed of stone rubble, deliberately arranged to create a mosaic effect, with ashlar and red brick dressings. The roofs are slate-covered, featuring tall red brick chimneys, some diagonally set, on stone bases with moulded caps and set-offs, and some with remaining octagonal pots.

The cottages present a unified facade in a Victorian Gothic style, exhibiting a basically symmetrical design, though intentionally varied and inconsistent. The central five-window section is flanked by projecting gables, each with one window on the second storey; further windows are located at each end. A stair turret is situated to the right of the right-hand gable. Windows are generally framed by flat granite lintels, with segmental relieving arches of red brick in the ground storey and pointed relieving arches of red brick in the second storey. Many retain their original wood casements; the ground storey windows typically have three panes, while second storey windows have two panes for the lower lights and three panes for two-light casements. Projecting bays with pent roofs covered in fish-scale slates are present in the ground storey windows to the left of the right-hand gable and the extreme left-hand window. Windows left of centre on both the ground and second storeys have been replaced in the 20th century.

Nos. 2 and 5 feature wooden hoods over the doorways, decorated with pendants and Gothic tracery. Second-storey windows, aside from those in the projections, are designed as tall gabled dormers, all with overhanging eaves and cusped bargeboards. The left-hand gable and dormers at each end are half-hipped. The stair turret is capped with a sharply pitched hipped roof, swept eaves, and a decorated iron ridge.

A cast-iron railing runs in front of the gardens, with decorated finials on each upright, set between square piers, some of which are gateposts. The piers are constructed of red brick with stone bands and pyramidical caps. The garden gates are wood-framed, incorporating similar cast-iron railings.

In 1870, the occupants included two ladies of "gentry" status, a schoolmistress, and an organist and choirmaster.