Avonbrook House

Avonbrook House is a large detached house, formerly a girls' school, dating from the late 18th century. It is thought that the architect may have been George Byfield, based on stylistic similarities to Webber House. The house is constructed of Flemish bond brickwork with a tile roof and brick stacks.

The building is arranged around a square block with a symmetrical front facade facing away from the street. An attached single-storey entrance lobby is on the side, with a door at the right end. The garden front is three storeys and a basement, featuring a five-window arrangement. The windows are nine-pane sashes with very narrow glazing bars, extending almost to floor level on the ground floor, set within cambered brick voussoirs and stone cills. The central bay is recessed within a full-height brick arch. The central doorway has part-glazed doors with diamond pattern bars, leading to a stone Doric doorcase with an entablature.

A decorative wrought- and cast-iron balcony, with a wood slat deck and lead tent hood, covers the ground and first floors. A moulded stone cornice, blocking, and coped parapet tops the facade. The house is accessed by a terrace approached by six stone steps with nosings. The North flank is brick to the parapet and features two string courses, a lofty arched staircase sash window, and a single 12-pane sash window.

The rear, or entry side, has a three-window arrangement mirroring the front, with a recessed central bay. A single-storey addition to the right has a four-panel door on five stone steps, set within a light-panelled splayed porch with open sides. Adjacent to this porch is a six-panel fielded door within a moulded architrave and under a pulvinated frieze with a moulded cornice. The South flank is partially obscured by later additions and has an external steel escape stair attached.

The interior features a square entrance hall with diagonally-set stone flags. There are panelled doors in reeded doorcases with rosettes, and a flat cornice with rosettes at approximately 300mm centres on a low-relief leaf-scroll frieze. A grand stone staircase rises in a semicircular open well, with stick balusters and a mahogany wreathed and swept handrail, returned at the top landing to clear a doorcase. The upper hall, originally extending the full depth of the house, is now partially partitioned off.

The ground-floor library has three elliptical-headed recesses with architraves and responds, and a fireplace in white and grey marble. The room above has a white marble fireplace with a central panel in high relief. A secondary staircase (in the North West corner) is timber, a narrow open-well winder with an open scrolled string and stick balustrade, serving both floors. Beneath this is a tight winder basement stair with brick treads and concrete nosings (formerly wood). The basement contains a brick floor and some brick vaulting.

Avonbrook House is a grand house, somewhat altered by later additions, but retaining most of its original detail in good condition.