Perridge House

Perridge House is a large house built around 1813 by George Byfield for Josiah White, with later additions and substantial renovations in the late 20th century. A rainwater head dated 1813 confirms the original construction period, with a circa mid-19th century extension, a 1906 wing, and significant late 20th-century alterations and renovations.

The house is built of brick, with stuccoed and blocked-out surfaces. It has hipped roofs with deep eaves covered in Delabole and asbestos slates, and rendered stacks with platbands. The original 1813 building on the west side features a grand entrance front with a portico on the west elevation and a two-storey bow on the north elevation, overlooking a wooded landscape. The bow was originally a single-storey. The survival of some cob walling in the eastern block points to a pre-1813 house on the site, which may have served as a service wing before the mid-19th century alterations, which included the addition of a water tower. In 1906, a new wing was added to the east of the water tower block, designed in an early 19th-century style with deep eaves and sash windows. A late 20th-century addition involved raising the height of the north elevation’s bow by adding a storey, and replacing the original 1813 portico with a copy built in 1962.

The symmetrical entrance front has 1:3:1 bays. The central three bays project slightly, rising above the eaves as a pedimented entablature. The portico, of Ionic columns, has two single columns in the center, single outer columns, and paired columns in the penultimate bays. The original portico's outer bays were enclosed in 1962 with round-headed windows containing margin glazing. Inside the portico are three sash windows, the right-hand window lengthened. The north elevation has five 12-pane sash windows on the first floor, with the 2 left-hand windows blocked. The water tower on the west elevation features a pyramidal slate roof. Interior features include early and mid-19th-century details, notably an early 19th-century staircase with iron balusters. An illustration from Rudolf Ackermann’s 1827 Repository of Arts Magazine (no. 60) depicts the entrance front of the house.