Taitlands, Garden Wall And Gatepiers

Taitlands is a house, now a youth hostel, built in the 1840s for Thomas Joseph Redmayne. It is constructed of ashlar with a slate roof and designed in the Greek Revival style. The house follows a central staircase plan and comprises two storeys and three bays. The central entrance bay projects slightly and features rusticated stonework on the ground floor, with banded rustication above. An Ionic portico with four fluted columns supports a cast iron balcony. The central entrance has two three-panel doors, a glazed fanlight, and imitation rusticated voussoirs. Ground floor windows have bead moulding on the sills and recessed 15-pane sashes. The upper floor windows are similar, but the lower ones have sashes; a sill band runs along the elevation. The central upper floor window has a moulded surround, while left and right pilasters add further detail. The eaves feature modillions that are more closely spaced above the central bay and end pilasters. Two ridge stacks, in the style of the Webster firm at Kendal, rise from the hipped roof.

Connected to the right is a two-storey, two-bay service wing, dated 1848, which is set back from the main facade. The interior entrance hall features paired wooden Ionic columns and a decorated plaster ceiling. A large fireplace in the main house’s kitchen is dated 1841 and bears the initials TRJ. The service wing’s fireplace surround has an imitation datestone dated 1848.

In the left-hand garden stands a Tuscan sundial base, approximately 146cm high, exhibiting pronounced entasis and inscribed "TR 1840" on its base; the original dial and gnomon are now missing. The curved driveway is flanked by a stone wall, with paired gate piers topped with pyramidal caps, and additional posts on either side.