Former Dowanside House, 74 Victoria Crescent Road

Circa 1855 with later 1898 mansard and 1st floor bays by Pugin & Pugin. 2-storey and basement 6-bay former double villa with later attic storey and later alterations and additions including 1896 wing to E. Coursed ashlar. Base course, architraved and corniced windows, bay windows to advanced outer bays, cill course to 1st floor, dentilled eaves cornice, mansard roof with dormers. Angled entrance doors set into former bays to left and right.

1896 Wing: 3-storey and attic 6-bay predominantly red sandstone former training college addition with later alterations and additions. Cill courses, roll-moulded openings, bay windows to end bays, round-headed windows to 2nd floor, central buttress dated '1896' supports stone round-headed niche with statue of Virgin Mary surmounted by a cross breaking eaves at 2nd floor. Some stone mullioned and mullioned and transomed windows. Piended dormers to attic.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical. Tripartite canted bays to outer bays flank inner 2 bay section. At outer corners, recessed angled 2-storey entrance doors reached by flight of steps. Pilastered and corniced doorpiece with rectangular fanlight. Attached to former chapel to left and by single bay to 1896 wing to right.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: (1896 wing) symmetrical. Tripartite canted bays to outer bays flank inner 4-bay section. Attached to linking wing to former training college and Notre Dame Primary School to right.

Villa: Predominantly timber sash and case windows, some plate glass, some 2-pane, some with horns. Timber mullions inserted at first floor and one to ground floor main elevation. Graded grey slates. Gable stacks.

1896 wing: Predominantly plate glass timber sash and case windows with horns. Grey slates.

INTERIOR: (villa) good despite subdivisions and alterations. Each half predominantly mirror image. Impressive composite columned and corniced entrance hall with stairs with decorative cast-iron banister with glazed cupola above (now not open to sky due to added storey). Stained and painted glass upper panel survives to entrance door to left. Very good deeply undercut cornices to principal rooms, some surviving marble chimneypieces. Good quality timberwork. Pugin & Pugin top floor supported by decorative network of chamfered timber posts, similar to work in chapel (see separate listing).

1896 wing: simple. Large classroom has slender cast-iron columns.

GATEPIERS, RAILINGS AND BOUNDARY WALLS: to S, low coped sandstone wall with railings with pair of stone square piers with shallow pyramidal caps to left. To right, some slender cast-iron piers. To villa entrances, some sections of decorative cast-iron railings.