Apperley Court

Apperley Court is a country house dating from the 18th century, with substantial alterations in 1817–18 by J. Collingwood for Mrs Strickland, and later extensions after 1845 for the Strickland family. The front of the house is rendered and lined to resemble ashlar, with roughcast to part of the rear and English-bond brickwork. The front roof is slated, while the rear is tiled. It has a seven-window front, with two-and-a-half storeys, and a ground-floor verandah; various rear wings create an irregular plan. The front elevation faces the garden, with the end bays slightly set back. The central portico is single-storey, featuring four Ionic pilasters and an infill of glazed screen with marginal lights, a double French door, a moulded cornice, and a flat roof. Verandahs run along both sides of the front, approached by two stone steps, with four-bay open fronts, cast iron columns, decorative ironwork to the eaves, and half-bays on each side of the centre filled with wooden glazed screens and marginal lights, all beneath hipped roofs. Behind the verandahs, on the ground floor, are 24-pane sash windows and pairs of French doors, also up one stone step. The upper floors have seven 16-pane sashes, louvred shutters, a plain string course, and a parapet. Seven gabled dormers, each with a two-light casement, are located across the roof. The main roof is hipped, with chimneys on the ridge, one bay in from each end and to the right of the central bay. A canted bay is present on the right return. The left return has a plinth, a wide sash window, a half-glazed door recessed and approached by two stone steps, a rectangular light over the door, and three large sashes with panelled shutters internally. Above these are a blind window, a sash with an ornamental blind box over, and three sashes with louvred shutters. A string course, parapet, and dormer are present on the right side, mirroring the front. A hipped roof and a ridge chimney are also featured. To the left is a lower brick wing.

Inside, the main stair hall has a stone-paved floor, an elliptical staircase with fretwork ends to the treads, a moulded handrail that sweeps down as a newel at the bottom, and a lion’s foot at the base. There are six-panel doors with dummy fielded panels and reeded surrounds with corner paterae. Two semi-circular niches with shaped shelves are built into the stair walls, and a modillion cornice tops the wall, with a laylight above. A room behind the portico has marginal lights to the doors and anthemion decorations instead of circular patera in the doorcases, along with a dado rail. A room to the left of the portico features a reeded marble fireplace surround with corner patera and a dado rail. Throughout the front rooms are moulded plaster cornices. At the rear of the right end, on the ground floor, are two W.C.s and a washbasin room with panelled wooden casing and cupboards and dado tiling. The W.C. pans and washbasins are blue patterned, with brass taps. A three-bay, two-storey farmhouse predates the 1817–18 house, with a left-end bay added in 1817–18 and a right bay and dormers added later. A proposed billiard room in 1898 was not constructed.