Abnash House And Retaining Wall

Abnash House is a detached house with a high retaining wall, dating from the early to mid-17th century, with alterations made in the mid to late 18th century. The building is constructed of random and coursed rubble limestone, featuring ashlar chimneys and a stone slate roof. It stands three storeys tall, with a single-storey rear wing.

The northwest front shows the earliest part of the house on the right, which originally had two full gables but was infilled with an upper storey in the 18th century. This section has three windows, with three-light recessed chamfered mullioned casements on the ground and middle floors, and a central two-light window on the upper floor, all beneath continuous dripmoulds. Each former gable has a two-light window with a hoodmould, and a larger two-light window is set between them. The central doorway features a 20th-century door and a gabled porch addition. The addition to the left also had a full gable and now has a single three-light window on each floor, with the ground floor window altered to a doorway. The house has three ridge-mounted chimneys with moulded tops, and the gable ends each have two oval windows, indicating the original roof-line.

At the rear, the fenestration and additional storey mirror the front, although several mullioned windows have been replaced in the 20th century. There is a small single-storey service wing. The high retaining wall at the northeast end of the building features two large raking buttresses that support a high-level roadway.

Inside, there is a small Jacobean open-well staircase with turned balusters, and moulded fireplaces at the southwest end. One particularly large fireplace has a pointed stone lintel and a shell-headed niche adjacent to it.