5 Sydenham Road, Glasgow

This is a large, two-storey and part-basement Italianate villa, built around 1850 to 1860 on a sloping ground falling to the east. The exterior is constructed of stugged cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings; broad, raised margins clasp the elevations at the quoins. Windows are architraved, with both arched and rectangular forms, incorporating single and bipartite configurations, and feature plate glass sash and case glazing. The roof has a shallow pitch with overhanging eaves and gables.

The west-facing entrance elevation has three bays. A Roman Doric pilastered architrave surrounds a cavetto-moulded doorpiece, containing a two-leaf, eight-panel door. The inner door is round-headed with three arched, leaded lights above a lugged panel and a glazed fanlight in the spandrel. The entrance is approached by a balustraded staircase, with a single window above the door. To the left is an architraved bipartite window at ground level, and a single arched window with a pedimented dormer breaking the eaves at the first floor. A gabled bay is slightly advanced to the right, featuring a three-light, parapetted projecting window bay at ground level and an arched bipartite window at the first floor.

The north elevation has a broad, gabled two-window bay to the right, and an advanced two-window bay to the left. A single-storey, pitched roof extends to screen the ground to the left of the gabled bay, forming a re-entrant angle. A nine-light mullioned and transomed stair window, with arched top lights and leaded glazing, is set in a segmental-arched recess at the first floor.

The rear (east) elevation is two-storeys and basement, and includes a large, full-height, three-light canted window projection to the right. Single windows are present to each cant, except for the east-facing window at the first floor, which is blind. There is a single window bay close to the canted projection at centre, blind to the left, and a wallhead stack rises above. The splay of the canted window bay extends to the right on the south elevation, forming a southeast angle.

The south elevation mirrors the rear elevation with a full-height canted bay window to the right. A broad gabled bay is to the left, with a projecting polygonal ingleneuk/oriel corbelled out at ground floor level.

The interior retains some of the original decorative scheme, including an arcaded screen in the drawing room on the ground floor.

The property is bounded by a low, two-course coped boundary wall to the right of a pair of painted, square-plan ashlar gate piers. The piers have deep plinths, chamfered arisses, plain friezes, and very shallow pyramidal caps.

A coachhouse, with a piend roof and a single-storey wing, is constructed of snecked cream sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings. The garden-facing elevation is blind to the left at ground floor. The coachhouse bay to the right has a doorway with a single pane rectangular fanlight, flanked by windows with six-pane glazing, the upper pair of panes being hoppers. Two semi-dormers with gableheads and 2-pane sash windows are present at attic floor level, with prominent eaves and bargeboards to the gablets. A central ridge chimneystack has a plain cope and blocking course. A single-storey, piend roofed wing faces the garden to the west; the rear elevation is not visible.