Stables, Drumhead House

Stables, Drumhead House

A mid-19th century Baronial house of three storeys in L-plan, built onto and substantially dwarfing an earlier 18th century T-plan house which now functions as the kitchen wing. The main building is constructed from squared and snecked honey-coloured sandstone with ashlar margins and dressings, featuring crowstepped gables. The earlier service wing is of rubble construction with a harl-pointed finish.

The south elevation presents an L-plan with a prominent 3-stage circular tower set within the re-entrant angle. The tower features a basket-arched doorway with roll-moulding and consoled cornice, flanked by narrow windows. Windows are symmetrically disposed at each stage, with the upper floor window incorporating strapwork detail, and small windows at the outer left and right at attic level. The tower terminates in an eaves cornice and candlesnuffer roof with lead finials. To the left, a broad bay is advanced, as is a central bay, with a ground-floor window and a tripartite window with stone mullions at principal floor level. The upper floor is slightly jettied with a crowstepped gable breaking over the window, which features strapwork details.

The west elevation comprises a three-storey block with a crowstepped gabled advanced bay to the left and a square bay window extending from ground to first floor with mutuled cornice and lead roof. A single window sits in the gablehead with strapwork detail above. A corbelled turret occupies the re-entrant angle to the right, featuring a blind arrowslit and eaves cornice with fish-scale tiles and lead finials. A gable to the right has windows symmetrically disposed from ground to first floor. A service block lies to the outer left.

The service wing dates from the early 18th century. It is two storeys with an attic and constructed from rubble with harl-pointing, ashlar margins and dressings, though later alterations include cement margins and painted sections on part of the east elevation.

The east elevation of the service wing features a narrow wing attached to the south of the later house, with a screen wall creating a courtyard effect to its left. A wing projects off-centre to the right with a small window to the left and a piend-roofed block at ground level. Altered windows occupy the left and right returns, with a door in the corner of the left return. A block to the left contains two openings at ground level, the rightmost of which is a former door now blocked as a window, bearing a lintel inscribed "AB 1766". A two-bay block to the right of the wing has a lean-to at ground level and two piend-roofed dormers symmetrically disposed. A narrow gabled bay projects to the outer left against the Baronial house, with a later piend-roofed single-storey block in front. A screen wall creates a courtyard effect on this elevation.

The west elevation of the service wing is a long range of rubble with cement margins and later additions, comprising four bays asymmetrically disposed. Crowstepped dormerheads occupy the outer left and right, that to the right enlarged to a door with window at ground level. A small window sits at ground level to the left. A 20th-century rendered piend-roofed oriel projects to the left, with a rubble gabled porch advanced at ground and a window to its left.

The north elevation of the service wing is a gable with a first-floor window to the outer left.

Throughout, windows are 12-pane and plate glass timber sash-and-case type. Roofs are covered with grey slate with lead flashings and lead coping and ball finials to the candlesnuffer roofs.

The stable block dates from the early to mid-19th century and forms an L-plan of rubble construction with stugged ashlar margins and dressings. A crowstep-gabled coach house and hayloft features a segmental-headed coach arch with boarded two-leaf doors and a crowstep-gabled hoist door above. A window sits in the gablehead of the return to the left. The lower two-bay stable wing has two doors symmetrically disposed as boarded two-leaf doors. The roof is of slate with lead flashings and a rooflight on the lower wing.

An 18th-century walled garden lies to the east of the house. The rubble wall has harl pointing with whinstone and sandstone rubble and ashlar slab coping, supported by rubble buttresses. Lean-to painted brick sheds with corrugated roofs are positioned against the north wall.