Summerrods And Attached Walls And Railings

No.7 Summerods is a house dating from 1790 to 1800, constructed with Ham Hill stone ashlar to the front and rough ashlar to the rear. The roof is slate, with rendered stacks on the gable ends and at the centre of the rear range. It has a double-depth plan, with 19th-century additions to each side. The front is symmetrical, presenting a three-window facade. A moulded cornice sits below the parapet wall. Steps lead up to a late 19th-century enclosed gabled porch with a 6-panel door and an ornamental fanlight above. A round-arched sash window with intersecting glazing bars is positioned above the porch, set within a reeded archivolt with a keystone and impost. The other windows are 6/6-pane sashes with moulded architraves and 19th-century balconettes featuring palmette motifs; basement windows have 10/10 panes.

The rear of the house features a full-height semicircular stair turret in the centre, topped with a large ornamental vase attached to a decorative railing. The ground falls away to the south, creating a difference in level; the ground floor on the north side becomes the first floor at the rear, accessible via sweeping stone staircases down to the garden. A two-storey lean-to extension, dating from the late 19th century, is situated to the left (east) return, with a 2-light casement window on the first floor front, 2- and 3-light casements to the side, and a door to the right. This extension is three storeys high at the rear. To the right (west) return is a ground-floor and basement lean-to with a swept-up front wall and 20th-century metal casement windows on both floors.

The interior remains largely unaltered and complete. A large stairhall houses an open-well open-string staircase with fret-cut brackets, a wreathed mahogany rail, a curtail-step around a turned newel. Ground-floor reception rooms display reeded cornices, dado-rail, and panelling. The room to the right has a late 19th-century marble fireplace with stiff-leaf embellishment to the cornice. All doors are six-panelled with inset beading, as are the shutters. The first floor has elliptical arches on the landing, and 18th-century stone fireplaces with plain surrounds and rolled edges, some with later additions. The attic retains wide floorboards and a planked door. The roof structure features collar-trusses with butted purlins, and a lead through-gutter from the central valley to the front. The basement is stone-flagged.

Subsidiary features include a low wall to the left that sweeps up to the house. Tapered square-section railings enclose the forecourts, mount the central steps, and ramp up to the door. Flat trellised piers, likely lampholders, flank the porch and are attached to the railings. A high rubblestone wall, attached to the right (west), extends approximately 100 metres southwards, sweeping and then stepping down the hill. Walls and piers to the left are listed separately, dating from 1976.