Burton Closes Mews

Burton Closes Mews is a group of former stables, a coach house, and houses, dating to approximately 1856-58. It was designed by TD Barry of Liverpool for William Allcard. The building is constructed of coursed rock-faced sandstone with ashlar dressings, and has a blue tile roof with shaped-tile bands. It is built in a vernacular style with Gothic Revival features designed to match the main house at Burton Closes.

The mews forms three sides of a paved yard with central entries in both the east and west sides. A prominent clock tower with a spire rises above the west arch of the east entry. The south side of the yard is closed off by a wall and a smaller range, while a central, low-walled feature, likely originally a horse pond but now a garden, sits in the middle. A small, single-story outbuilding, formerly the cold dairy, is attached to the north-west corner.

The clock tower features a single transomed light to the first-floor stage above the archway. The clock chamber is set within, and features short, offset angle buttresses beneath a corbel table which once supported a continuous arcade of blind trefoils. The pyramidal spire has louvred lucarnes and a weather-vane. The east range of the mews, on either side of the carriageway, features irregular fenestration of 2 and 3-light casements. Five hipped dormers are visible on the east roof slope and a half-hipped dormer with an arched window is on either side of the tower on the west. There are several arched doorways. The north range has similar irregular fenestration and arched doorways, along with catslide dormers.

On the west side of the yard, a central archway is topped by a crow-step gable with a finial. Either side of this archway are houses, planned symmetrically around the yard’s axis. Each house has two bays facing the yard, with two cross-windows on the ground floor and two 2-light windows with arched heads beneath half-hipped dormers. The west elevation of each house has a half-hipped cross wing at either end with matching fenestration; open timber porches with lean-to roofs are situated in the angles. Gable copings are chamfered and feature finials, while projecting end stacks have trefoils towards the archway, and are less decorative at the opposite end. Most of the casement frames were replaced in the 20th century, but are situated within the original window openings.

The doors have ornamental wrought-iron strap hinges. The carriageway gates are timber with friezes of quatrefoils below the top rails. The cold dairy outbuilding has an original door pierced by quatrefoils, and a coped gable with a quatrefoil. The interior of the mews was not inspected at the time of listing.