23-26, Lowther Village

A group of four houses, built between 1766 and 1773 by the architect Robert Adam as estate housing for Sir James Lowther. They form part of a planned model village, although the village was never fully realised. The houses are constructed from mixed sandstone rubble with string courses on the two-storey sections, and have graduated greenslate roofs with banded cement-rendered chimney stacks. They represent a quadrant of a circular design, of which only half was completed; the central section is single-storey and nine bays wide, featuring plank doors, while two-storey wings extend from either end, each one bay wide. Twentieth-century casement windows are set in original plain reveals, and are finished with red sandstone lintels and sills. The buildings were semi-derelict in the early 1960s but were subsequently altered with a grant from the Historic Buildings Council in 1965. Further details can be found in the Ancient Monument Society’s Transactions, volume 14, pages 57 to 73, and in R.W. Brunskill’s publication, Lowther Village and Robert Adam.