Tolbury House And Attached Walls, Gatepiers And Gate

Tolbury House is a house dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, substantially rebuilt and remodelled around 1835. It is constructed of coursed limestone rubble, rendered to the front overlooking the garden, with a Welsh slate roof. The building has a “F” shaped plan, with projecting wings facing the garden.

The two-storey garden front has six bays, with a projecting wing to the left. The central three bays feature early 19th-century twelve and sixteen-pane sash windows and French windows with glazing bars. The projecting wing to the right has sash windows flanking a first-floor tripartite window, with fixed outer lights and glazing bars, above a similar tripartite window and a French window with margin-light glazing bars. A bay to the extreme right has a twelve-pane sash above half-glazed double doors with margin-light glazing bars. The rear wall has an ostler's ring and a fire-insurance plaque, alongside two tall semi-circular arched windows, including a fine stair-light with radiating glazing bars to the head and sexfoils set in diamond-paned leaded lights.

A small service court on the left has an early 19th-century plank door leading to a laundry and pantry building with a lean-to roof and 19th-century two-light windows, one with original louvred shutters. A lean-to lavatory is situated at the front.

The interior is exceptionally well-preserved. Features include panelled shutters and doors with original fittings, such as curtain rods, moulded skirtings and dado rails, plank dados, cast-iron grates and fire surrounds in various styles. A front room on the right, formerly the dining room, has a neo-classical fireplace with a foliate cornice and picture rails. The central hall has a decorative tile floor, and the stairhall contains a fine open-well staircase with stick balusters, fret-cut brackets to the open string, and a ramped and wreathed mahogany handrail, as well as a moulded dado rail and moulded cornice. The kitchen has 19th-century plank screens, fitted cupboards, an arched open fireplace with a bread oven set in an ashlar surround, and a service stair. Further plank screens separate the former servants' rooms in the attic. A ground-floor room to the right of the kitchen has an 18th-century keyed stone fireplace with a brass bracket. The laundry contains a 19th-century copper.

The property is surrounded by substantial limestone rubble walls. A wall bearing 1835 date plaques extends approximately 35 metres to the southeast, curving northeast for around 29 metres. Another wall with ashlar coping extends approximately 1 metre to the northwest, running for approximately 95 metres east along Higher Backway, returning approximately 25 metres south and 18 metres west at the eastern end. A ramped north-facing section along Higher Backway features an early 19th-century studded door with decorative cross-bracing and rosettes, set within a reset early 17th-century architrave, flanked by rusticated gatepiers and similar decorative gates with rosettes and quatrefoils to the upper panels above cross-braced lower panels.