Ashburner House At Dowdales School

Ashburner House is a large house, built around 1895 for G.B. Ashburner of Walton. It is now part of Dowdales School. The house is constructed of coursed sandstone with ashlar dressings, and has a slate roof. It is two storeys and an attic, with a three-storey tower to the front centre and a one-storey wing to the rear. The front elevation features three bays. A chamfered plinth, roll-moulded and quoined window surrounds, and oversailing embattled parapets with gadrooned ball finials are visible. The ashlar gable copings have finials. The doorway, set back on the right, has a panelled double door with a fanlight within an ashlar doorcase featuring pilasters, a basket arch, an acanthus-carved keystone, paterae, and a dentilled cornice. A small single-light window above the door has fleurons in its surround. A corbelled vice rises as a square turret, connected to a corbelled lateral stack with crenellated ashlar flues. The front tower is set forward and has rounded corners, with a transomed three-light window under a relieving arch to the ground floor, two plain sashes to the first floor, and a three-light mullioned window to the second floor. A carved shield of arms is found in the squared parapet. Bay one has a canted two-storey bay window with a 1:3:1 arrangement of lights, the ground-floor lights being transomed and having an embattled parapet with ball finials. A gabled roof dormer above has a three-light casement with glazing bars. A corbelled and corniced end stack is on the left. The rear has a stair window with two transoms and a king mullion. A contemporary one-storey wing links the house to school buildings constructed in 1928. The left return has two gables, the one on the left having a two-storey bay window. The right return has a single gable with a canted, one-storey bay window.

The interior, which has not been fully inspected, features lobby doors with stained-glass panels depicting two flower bearers; the overlight has a pot plant etched into it. The stair hall has a patterned tile floor, an embossed dado, a frieze with strapwork, masks, and drapes, and patterned ceiling panels. The staircase has turned balusters, an octagonal newel with a vase finial, and a stair window with stained-glass panels depicting The Arts, featuring multiple insets illustrating flora and fauna. Due to inherited financial burdens, G.B. Ashburner took his own life before he could occupy the house. In 1897, it became the home of Mr. Kellett, manager of the Barrow Haematite Steel Co., and then a school in 1928.