St Cuthbert'S Lodge And Attached Walls And Gate Piers

This is a detached house, originally built in the early 18th century and later used as government offices, now occupied by multiple tenants. It is of group value. The house is rendered with colourwashing, featuring Doulting stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof with coped gables. It has ashlar chimney stacks.

The original design was a U-shaped plan, creating an open courtyard between the gabled rear wings, with two smaller service wings to one side. The initial layout included a large central staircase hall with a principal salon to the rear and double-depth wings on each side.

The exterior is two storeys with attics and a partial basement, comprising eight bays with glazing-bar sashes. Four small, flat-roofed dormers have slate cheeks, while the upper floors feature 12-pane sashes within bolection-mould stone architraves. Ground-floor architraves include a flat moulded frieze and cornice, accentuated by a band course. The central entrance now has a 20th-century door, leading up three steps to a fanlight with a rectangular radially glazed design. This entrance is framed by a bolection mould architrave, topped with a simplified open pediment supported by console brackets. The rear of the house has large, Palladian windows on the ground floor, and the projecting wings have modelled Dutch gables. A narrow courtyard is located between two lower gabled wings, incorporating a stone-mullioned casement and a variety of early 18th-century sash windows. The plinth has a double offset that tapers to the pavement. Notable features include bold alternating quoins, a plain mid-band, a moulded cornice with modillions, and a concealed gutter. Chimneys are positioned on the gable ends and at the ridge to the left of the doorway.

The interior, partially inspected, includes a large rectangular hall to the right of the entrance, with an L-shaped staircase rising to a quarter landing. This staircase features alternating plain and twisted balusters, a swept handrail with scrolled end treads, a heavy fireplace surround in white marble with a palmette frieze. A delicate triple-arched screen on fluted pilasters separates the hall from a transverse passage with plaster groin vaults over three bays, providing access through panelled doors. The rear salon has a late 18th-century Adamesque fireplace surround of marble with yellow marble inlays and guttae. Across from the fireplace is a recess with Corinthian fluted pilasters framing an elliptical arch, and a plain moulded cornice. Some rooms retain remnants of enriched modillion cornices, and the ground-floor windows generally have panelled shutters. A partial cellar exists beneath the rear courtyard, with brick vaults and brick wine bins.

The property is accompanied by a pair of 18th-century stone gate piers with vermiculated rustication. These piers are topped by moulded cornices and large ball finials.