Vellore House

Vellore House is a mansion built in three distinct phases: the mid-18th century, the late 18th century, and the early 20th century. The most visually prominent element is the circa 1790s Gothick or castle-style villa, which now forms the principal feature of the building.

The 1790s villa presents a symmetrical north-facing entrance front. Its main block is rectangular in plan, two storeys high and three bays wide, connected by straight links to two-stage circular turrets at either end. The structure is built of rubble with polished ashlar dressings, quoins, and openings featuring broad raised margins with droved tails. The rubble was originally rendered to resemble ashlar, traces of which remain visible above the wallhead at the parapet. The roofs are slated; the main block has a piend roof (reslated in 1992), the links have shallow piend roofs, and the turrets are topped with steep pitched conical caps. The castle-style design employs pattern book Gothick detailing throughout. The main block displays a castellated parapet with mock arrow-slit detail and diminutive polished ashlar bartizans corbelled out over the angles. Large rectangular windows with 12-pane sash-and-case glazing and hoodmoulds punctuate the walls beneath a dentilled cornice and crenellated parapet. A single-storey square-plan entrance porch projects from the centre bay, dating to circa the mid-19th century. It features an elaborate cluster-shafted ogee-arched doorpiece with a traceried fanlight facing north; the doorpiece was originally built into the wall plane and was re-used in its current projecting position. Pointed-arched windows with sash-and-case glazing occupy the re-entrant angles flanking the porch. Dummy windows appear at first-floor level on the re-entrant sides. The single-storey links contain three symmetrical pointed-arched windows, with the central window being the largest, all featuring margined glazing and hoodmoulds; the flanking arched windows were boarded up in 1992. Scalloped ashlar crenellations top the links. The terminal turrets display large crosslet loop openings below (some partially blocked), each with a small square-headed light at centre, and small pointed-arched windows at upper stage linked by a continuous cill band. They are crenellated in front of the conical caps.

The interior of the villa comprises large single rooms flanking the entrance and a narrow corridor passage extending along the south side of the house. Early and later 19th-century interior schemes survive, particularly in the room to the right (west) of the entrance, which features a deep coved ceiling and a grey veined marble chimneypiece at the centre of the west wall, likely dating to the late 18th century. Both rooms flanking the entrance are bisected halfway across by a later Victorian period beam. Window shutters throughout are five-panelled, with alternating tall vertical and horizontally proportioned panels. The room to the east is plainer in treatment. The north porch or vestibule contains a coloured tiled floor, a semi-circular fanlight at the inner door with two concave curved glazing bars, and two-leafed panelled doors, presumably dating to the mid-19th century when the original door was relocated. A curved wall section within the 1905 addition to the east may represent a portion of the original curved rear wall of the 1790s villa.

The earlier mid-18th-century core, now appearing as an L-plan rear wing, originally comprised a two-storey, three-bay symmetrical gabled house with a slated pitched roof and corniced end stacks, oriented with its entrance to the east or west. Its north gable is masked by the 1790s building, and its south gable is masked by a two-storey, piend-roofed 1905 addition with a central apex stack and modern glazing. Windows were remodelled and semi-circular pedimented dormer-headed attic windows were added circa 1905. A full-height addition in the south-east re-entrant angle includes a first-floor entrance. The east elevation bears evidence of various modern additions at ground level.

The 1905 additions comprise three elements. A central two-storey block with a piend roof was built onto the south gable of the earlier house. Flanking this are a pair of symmetrical single-storey rectangular-plan blocks with three bays, positioned to the east and west and linked to the main 1790s villa. The western block features a gambrel roof and contains a billiard room with an arched braced timber roof and an Arts and Crafts chimneypiece with mirror overmantel and deep cornice on the north wall to the right. The eastern block has a platformed piend roof and modern glazing. The timber sash-and-case windows original to the 1905 additions have nine-pane upper sashes and plate-glass lower sashes. Dormer-headed windows with semi-circular pediment heads appear in these additions.

Gatepiers flank the approach to the house. A pair of small circular-plan ashlar piers with cornices and pyramidal caps date to circa the late 18th century and stand to the west of the house. A pair of larger square-plan ashlar piers with rubble-built wing walls marks the main entrance from the road.