Shandon House, Shore Road, Shandon

Shandon House, Shore Road, Shandon

This is a 2-storey house with attic, designed by Charles Wilson in 1849. It is an asymmetrical, rambling-plan Baronial house with Jacobethan details. The building is rendered in coarse cement with ashlar dressings and margins, with a base course and crowstepped gables.

The south elevation presents five asymmetrically disposed bays. An entrance block of three bays projects off-centre to the left. At the centre stands a tall, three-stage tower with a basket-arched door surrounded by deeply moulded frames and shallow banded rustication decorated with nailhead motifs. The door is crowned by a robust keystone also bearing nailhead decoration and strapwork above with an owl at its centre. Two narrow windows occupy the second stage, symmetrically disposed with a plaque at the centre; a window appears at the centre of the third stage. A crenellated bay to the right features a slender bartizan and single windows symmetrically disposed at ground and first floor, with a tripartite window at attic level. A console cornice and crenellated parapet complete this section. A lower bay to the left contains a single window at ground and first floor, with a jettied attic floor and gabletted dormer. A gabled bay at the outer left has a window at ground level and a canted oriel on a corbelled base at first floor, with a blocking course below. To the right of the entrance bays is a lower block with a tripartite projecting window at its centre ground level, featuring stone mullions and transoms and a decorative blocking course with a strapwork pediment; a datestone reading 1800 appears at the centre. Gabled dormerheads at first floor display plaques with finials. The outer right section comprises stugged, coursed sandstone with a three-stage corner tower featuring small rectangular windows now obscured by ivy.

The east elevation is asymmetrical. A tall crenellated tower block stands off-centre to the left, with a full-height canted bay window extending from ground to first floor and windows to its right and left at ground level; a window appears at the centre of the third stage. The crenellated parapet sits on deeply moulded corbels, with crenellated bartizans at the corners and a gable with apex stack rising at the centre behind the parapet. To the right is a lower two-bay block with symmetrically disposed windows and gabled strapwork dormerheads in stugged sandstone. A square-plan bartizan stands at the outer right, gabled in form. A lower slender bay to the left of the tower contains a large window with stone mullion and transom featuring cusped, cross-shaped upper lights; a single window occupies the first floor. A gabled outer left bay holds a full-height bow window with a dividing cornice and saw-tooth blocking course topped by a half-conical ashlar roof. A rope-moulded hoodmould spans the upper window, culminating in knotted label stops, with a blank raised plaque to the right. An apex stack rises at this location, with a square-plan tower roof behind the gable topped by a serpent finial on a weather-vane.

The west elevation features an advanced gabled bay at the outer right with a canted window at ground and a single window at first floor, flanked by slender pepperpot turrets and blind narrow windows. A lower narrow gabled bay recesses to the left, incorporating a stone transomed and mullioned window with cross-shaped upper lights. A taller crenellated bay stands to the left with a single window at ground, a canted oriel at first floor, and a tripartite window at attic. A lower two-bay block occupies the right, with windows at higher levels in the penultimate bay, a single window at ground, and two windows at first floor; a roofless bartizan adjoins this section.

The north elevation displays a roughly U-plan rear arrangement. Advanced gables project at the outer left and right, the latter broader and cement-rendered. A wall built between the two blocks obscures the ground floor of the rear elevation. A tower recesses at the outer left with crenellated bartizans and windows on the right side of the tower featuring 10-pane glazing at the second floor. The block to the right contains a blocked tripartite stair window directly below a fire escape.

The roof is grey slate with fish-scale tiles and cast-iron finials for turrets and bartizans. Linked, diamond-set ridge stacks on pedestal bases and tall corniced apex stacks are present. Plate glass sash and case windows are used throughout, though many are now blocked with plywood.

The interior features a vestibule now divided by a partition to the right, originally opening into a large room with a substantial Tudor ashlar fireplace set into an arched recess and a compartmentalised ribbed ceiling with wreath and ribbon interlaced cornice. A hall passage runs the entire width of the house, featuring a rope-moulding cornice punctuated by nailhead motifs and an arched ribbed ceiling with ribs carried on owl corbels. The ground floor includes a drawing room to the left with a compartmentalised ceiling of raised quatrefoil decoration and crocketted plasterwork rosette, with a Corinthian column screen near the hall. The drawing room to the right is bow-ended with a compartmentalised ceiling and decorative crocketted plasterwork; four-panelled doors open onto a basket-arched arcade of three arches featuring clustered columns with vegetal capitals and a nailhead cornice. A grand double stair lies beyond; the wooden balusters have been removed, though the newel posts with ball finials survive. A similar arcade appears at the upper landing. A first-floor room to the right features a coved, ribbed ceiling with ribs carried on lion with saltire figurative corbels. All dados and fireplaces have been removed from the building. Upper rooms are plain, and a modern cast-iron stair occupies the outer tower.

A bridge carries the avenue over a small burn. It is constructed of coursed sandstone with an ashlar base course and saddleback coping, decorated with a pierced trefoil motif surrounded by red sandstone.