5, The Drive

This is a semi-detached house dating to around 1880, located in The Drive, Abington, Northampton. The exterior is brick with ashlar dressings and a plain tile roof with brick stacks. The street frontage features a two-story canted bay window with plain sashes and a brick parapet. Above is a dormer window with a half-timbered gable and two sashes. A glazed lean-to entrance porch is set back to the left. Above the porch is a single plain sash window, and above that, a blank circular opening with keystones.

The interior features a dining room designed in 1919 by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Dr F Jones. The dining room preserves original Mackintosh detailing, including a continuous plate shelf supported on small brackets, and a fireplace with a large blue tiled surround arranged in a vertical banded style with horizontal bands of grouting. A wooden frame surrounds the projecting curb above the fireplace, and two central mantel shelves are present – one projecting with canted sides, and the other concave. Bowed light fittings with vertical struts and mottled glass are positioned either side of a fixed rectangular mirror. Fitted shelving with projecting cupboards below and flush display cabinets (with closely spaced horizontal glazing bars) flank the fireplace. Similar light fittings originally illuminated a sideboard, also designed by Mackintosh, which has since been removed. The central entrance doorway has three vertical panels. Dr F Jones was the brother-in-law of E Bassett-Lowke and the only other English patron of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The house is listed primarily due to the quality and significance of the Mackintosh-designed dining room.