Shank House

The property comprises a dated 1758 and 1880 L-plan house with later additions, along with the remains of an earlier house and a walled garden. The house itself is a single storey and attic structure, with a three-bay principal block and a three-bay wing projecting to the rear, embracing a single storey lean-to in the re-entrant angle. The exterior is primarily of harl-pointed rubble walls with droved sandstone ashlar dressings. A base course is present, with chamfered window reveals, relieving arches above the ground floor windows, and shouldered openings to the attic floor.

The southwest (principal) elevation is symmetrical, featuring a modern infill doorway in the centre of the ground floor, originally marked by a keystone dated 1758. Windows flank this doorway. A framed datestone marked RD 1880 is centred above the doorway, and gabled stone dormerheads break the eaves on the outer bays of the attic floor. A rubble garden wall runs along the left side of the elevation. The southeast elevation is blank. The northeast elevation features an advanced single-storey wing with modern openings on its return, and regular fenestration on its right return. A window is located centrally within the single-storey lean-to, which has a cat-slide roof in the re-entrant angle; a modern entrance porch is situated on the outer left of the re-entrant angle. The northwest elevation presents the gable of the principal block, with a single window off-centre on the ground floor, a rubble-infilled window on the right side of the attic floor, and irregular fenestration to the rear wing extending to the left.

Most windows are predominantly four-pane timber sash and case; the roofs are grey slate, with overhanging timber eaves and exposed rafter ends to the principal roof and rear wings. Decorative bargeboards with incised quatrefoils adorn the principal roof, and dormers are timber-finialled. The rear wing has red clay ridge tiles. Coped and harled gablehead stacks have octagonal cans, with a single-flue harled wallhead stack on the lean-to wing. Cast iron rainwater goods are present. The interior was not inspected in 1997.

The walled garden is three-sided, with walls running along the northeast, northwest, and southwest sides of the house. The random rubble walls have been repaired in places. Infilled doorways with chamfered reveals and polished raised margins are centered on the northeast and northwest walls; the northwest wall is recessed to the right, with another infilled doorway on its return. The remains of the earlier Shank House stand to the west of the walled garden’s southwest wall. These remains consist of the southeast and southwest walls of a regularly fenestrated, two-storey, four-bay house constructed of pink sandstone rubble with polished dressings, featuring raised margins with chamfered reveals, relieving arches, and long and short quoins.