Ravensworth And Attached Walls And Railings

Ravensworth is a house, dating from circa 1850, originally built as a villa and now used as offices. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with banded rustication, featuring a Ham Hill stone doorcase and a hipped slate roof with limestone stacks. The building has a double-depth plan and is in a Classical style. It is two storeys and displays a symmetrical three-window front. Steps lead to a Tuscan doorcase with panelled reveals, a wooden fanlight set within an elliptical arch, and a six-panel door. Above the door is a flat-arched sash window with 3/6 panes. Flanking the central bay are two-storey wooden and canted bays built on stone plinths; the ground floor windows are 6/6-pane sashes with moulded cornices, while the first floor has 3/6-pane sashes. The hipped roof has a shallow pitch with wide eaves supported by brackets, and ashlar stacks with cornices to the return walls.

The interior features a central hall with an elliptical arch and four panelled pilasters below a cross-vaulted ceiling with an ornamental boss. An open-well staircase has an open string, turned balusters, fretted ends, a wreathed handrail, and a curtail step; a semicircular-arched sash window with margin panes is situated in the left return. The cornices are reeded, with late 19th-century added ornaments to the ground floor. A white marble fireplace with an arch-plate register grate is found on the first floor.

Subsidiary features include iron forecourt railings of long/short spearhead style, set on a low Ham Hill stone wall with an elliptical plan, flanking the front door. The villa is a distinctive design and part of an elegant pair with numbers 32A and 32B Fore Street.