Mansfield House, Wemyss Bay

Mansfield House, Wemyss Bay

This is a substantial Scots Baronial mansion house dating from 1862, substantially remodelled and extended by architect John Honeyman in 1889–90. The main building comprises a 2-storey structure with an engaged circular tower, extended by extensive single and 3-storey Scots Jacobean additions to the front and rear that form a central courtyard. The composition presents 3 bays with distinctive features including a base course, string course between ground and first floors, and crowstepped gables. The walls are constructed from squared, stugged pink sandstone with cream sandstone to the later phases and ashlar margins. Windows throughout feature stone mullions and transoms, particularly to the later additions. Adjacent to the main house stands a late 18th-century 2-storey 3-bay villa known as Mansfield, built from squared red sandstone rubble with raised painted margins and pilaster quoins. This building has a later single bay addition at the outer left and a 2-storey range to the rear forming a T-plan.

On the south-west elevation facing Wemyss Bay Road, the tower to the outer right rises to an octagonal copper ogee roof with a ball finial, corbelled from the main structure. Half columns with grotesque mask terminals flank the third-floor windows, with a strapwork frieze above and an oval cartouche to each bay. The central right gable features a bracketed cill supporting a third-floor bipartite window with a scroll-carved pediment dated 1890. A canted bay to the centre left contains a third-floor verandah corbelled out with half columns terminating in stylised grotesque masks, supporting a slated piended roof carried on 4 timber posts with carved capitals. A timber glazed 2-leaf door opens from this verandah, with a ground-floor door set within a quadripartite window leading to the garden. The bay to the outer left, from the original 1862 phase, features a canted ground-floor tripartite window, a square panel in the string course bearing the monogram 'TCH', and a corbelled and chamfered first-floor bipartite window above a round-arched third-floor bipartite opening.

The north-west elevation displays 2-storey and attic accommodation from 1862 with 2 gables. A timber boarded door with a shoulder-arched fanlight within a decorative roll-moulded surround provides the principal entrance. A fish-scale slated bartizan with weathervane is corbelled out to the right at first-floor level. A single-storey block added in 1890 to the left features a central gable and a tripartite stone mullioned and transomed window with a timber glazed door at its centre. Above this sits a pedimented tablet with a scrolled cartouche to the centre and carved initials 'MA', 'S', and 'NB' flanked by elaborate strapwork. A further piend-roofed range is set back to the outer left.

The north-east rear elevation comprises a single-storey and attic 6-bay range with timber panelled doors fitted with letterbox fanlights to the centre and outer left. Five pedimented windows break the eaves above. A piended roof extends to ground-floor height to the right, and a gable to the left contains a chimney stack. A gabled single-storey outbuilding with white glazed brick interior, possibly a dairy, is connected to the main house by coal cellars.

Throughout the principal house, windows retain original timber sash and case glazing. The later phases feature 9-pane upper sashes with plate-glass lower sashes, whilst the tower contains multi-pane timber sash and case glazing and the earlier phase features plate-glass sashes. Decorative geometric leaded glass and similarly glazed timber doors appear to the north-west elevation. Grey slate roofs throughout are topped with terracotta ridges to the rear ranges and corniced stacks, with some octagonal cans remaining. Cast-iron rainwater goods and decorative hoppers, some dated 1862 from the earlier phase, are evident.

The interior, partially inspected in 2002, reveals a ground-floor drawing room with a white-painted timber fire surround supported by paired columns with a tiled slip. The overmantel features fluted pilasters flanking small shelves with scrolled pediments and a central fitted mirror. A similar timber-glazed cupboard stands to the right. Timber architraves, picture rails, an ornate plaster cornice, and a ceiling rose complete the decoration. The dining room, partially visible, displays timber geometric panelling to the lower half of its walls (unpainted) and a picture rail.

Mansfield, the adjoining late 18th-century villa, presents a symmetrical garden front with bowed tripartite bays to ground and first floors with a piend roof, flanked by single windows. A later advanced pilastered, piend-roofed bay to the outer left contains a pilastered tripartite window at ground level and a single window with a cill course above. A later single-storey entrance bay, set back to the outer right, completes the composition. The villa features timber sash and case plate-glass windows, grey slate roofs with a corniced gable stack and clay cans, and cast-iron rainwater goods.

Boundary walls and gatepiers further define the estate. To Dunloe, low coped, coursed, and stugged cream sandstone walls are punctuated by chamfered gatepiers on plinths with foliate carved and corniced caps topped by orb finials. A high, stepped red sandstone coped wall bounds the west side, with a stepped corniced red sandstone wall incorporating openings dividing the garden north and south (with stables to the north). To the rear, a stugged red sandstone rubble wall with coping is flanked by plain ashlar gatepiers with centrally raised caps. To Mansfield, low coursed and stugged red sandstone walls with ashlar coping are lined with regularly spaced ashlar obelisk posts to the front and south-west, where railings have been removed. Red sandstone gatepiers with corniced caps and coped rubble walls to the rear complete the boundary treatment.