Evans House And Attached Area Railings To The Front

Evans House is a town house, built between 1750 and 1759, with a late 19th-century extension to the east. It was altered later and is now used as a boarding house for Sedbergh School. The house is constructed of roughcast render on rubble stone, with rusticated quoins, and has a slate roof. It follows a double-depth, double-fronted plan, with the later extension attached to the east. The architectural style is Georgian.

The main part of the house is three storeys high, with a basement and attic, and has five windows. It is symmetrical in design. The front features a square-headed doorway with a pedimented Ionic architrave made up of engaged columns, a pulvinated frieze, and a dentilled cornice. The doorway has a door with 12 raised fielded panels arranged in three tiers. Above the doorway is a round-headed sash window with thick radiating glazing bars. The ground and first floor windows are segmental-headed sashes; those to the right are four-paned, while the others are twelve-paned. The second floor windows are shorter square-headed sashes, all nine-pane sashes except for the centre one, which is a casement. All windows have raised run-out sills. A flat-topped attic dormer is centrally positioned on the roof, and there are gable chimneys.

To the left is the 19th-century extension, three storeys high and of the same height as the original block. This extension is divided into a three-window section, slightly set back, and a one-window section to the left. The windows are generally matching, except for a ground-floor window to the right, which has eighteen panes, and may have formerly been a doorway. The one-window section has wider windows: two eight-pane sashes are at the ground floor, while the first and second floors have sashes of twelve and sixteen panes respectively. Spear railings on a low stone plinth enclose a shallow front area along the full length, with a gateway aligned with the doorway.

At the rear, the walls are of random rubble with rusticated quoins, and the elevation is three storeys over an exposed basement. The main five-window range has a large round-headed stair-window in the centre with rubble voussoirs and radiating glazing bars. Other windows are square-headed and similar to those at the front. A back doorway, approached by six steps, is located to the left of centre and has a fielded panel door, protected by a simple porch made of stone slate slabs with a hipped roof. The 19th-century extension is set back to the right, and features windows with small panes (thirty panes at ground and first floors, and twenty panes at the second floor). A 20th-century fire escape is present at the east end.

The interior entrance hallway has fluted pilasters to a plastered beam, doorways with moulded architraves, and a very good mid-18th-century dog-legged open-string staircase with scrolled brackets, three slender turned balusters per tread, a ramped handrail with a wreathed curtail. A fireplace in the front ground-floor room features moulded decoration, including foliated side and top panels, as well as a phoenix in the centre.

The house forms a group with the associated walled garden to the rear.