Kelloe Mains, Kelloe House

Kelloe Mains, Kelloe House

A mid 19th-century house incorporating earlier fabric, with later additions and alterations. The building is a 2-storey, 3-bay L-plan classical composition constructed of squared and snecked sandstone with stugged ashlar dressings. The principal elevations (south and west) feature polished ashlar doorpieces and ashlar base and eaves courses. The south elevation includes a rendered 2-bay group to the right. The centre of the south elevation has a 2-bay group with stugged sandstone ashlar and broadly droved ashlar dressings.

The west elevation presents a projecting porch to the centre at ground level with a cornice and blocking course, containing a panelled door with letterbox fanlight set in a pedimented and pilastered doorpiece. Windows flank the porch on its return elevations. Two widely spaced windows sit at first floor, with a cornice and pediment above. Tripartite windows with narrow flanking lights occupy the ground and first floors of each flanking bay.

The south elevation is 5 bays, grouped as 1-2-2. The central 2-bay group features widely spaced tripartite windows at both ground and first floors in the left bay, with a broad window at ground level in the right bay and a window at first floor. The 2-bay group to the right is set back and much altered, forming a single storey with attic. It contains a small window at ground level in the left bay with a dormer to the attic breaking the eaves, and a modern glazed 2-leaf sliding door in the right bay at ground with a matching dormer above. The outer left bay projects substantially and contains a canted 3-light window at ground with cornice and coped blocking course, and a window at first floor.

The north elevation is irregularly composed. A central single-storey rubble lean-to addition contains a broad window flanked to the right by a former door (now partly blinded to form a window) and a small blinded window to the outer right. A penultimate right bay includes a stugged single-storey addition at ground with polished ashlar raised margins and coped wallhead, with stugged ashlar at first floor and broadly droved ashlar tails with polished ashlar margins. This section has a window at ground and a partly-glazed door with rectangular fanlight to the east return elevation, with a window at first floor above. The outer right bay is of squared and snecked stugged sandstone with stugged ashlar dressings, with a door at ground now blinded. A 3-bay group to the left is irregularly disposed, with rubble and droved ashlar dressings at ground floor and stugged sandstone with droved ashlar dressings at first floor. A window sits at first floor to the right of centre (possibly with a blinded window at ground), a panelled door with rectangular plate glass fanlight in the right bay, and a small window in the left bay.

The windows are of varied types including 12-pane and 6-pane timber sash and case windows to the tripartite windows. The complex slate roof features ashlar coped stacks: one at the pediment apex to the west elevation, one at the outer right of the north elevation and return east elevation of the projecting bay to the left of the south elevation, and rendered stacks to the middle and east sections, with a rendered wallhead stack to the east elevation.

Interior features include encaustic tiles to the hall, shutters and cornice to the drawing room, and panelled doors and skirting boards (renewed in 1996). A cast-iron balustrade with timber handrail serves the principal staircase. The east section of the house, formerly a dairy, has no shutters. No original chimneypieces remain in place.

To the east of the house stands a former stables and gig house: a single-storey, 4-bay piended building of whinstone and sandstone rubble with droved ashlar dressings. The boarded door is in the inner right bay, a sliding double door in the outer right bay, a window in the inner left bay, and a pivoting boarded garage door in the outer left bay. A brick-base glass house sits to the south elevation (possibly early 20th century). A sandstone rubble wall projects north from the centre, carrying two square-plan tooled ashlar gatepiers with ogeed coping (taken from Kelloe House), with modern wrought-iron gates.

Additional gatepiers and walls relate to the wider estate. Two stugged ashlar square-plan chamfered gatepiers with coping and ball finials stand to the west of the house (taken from Kelloe House). To the north of the house, a rubble wall projects from the west end of the penultimate right bay addition, carrying two polished ashlar octagonal-planned gatepiers with coping (taken from Broom House).

A 3-sided walled garden (open to the south) is constructed of whinstone and sandstone rubble with concrete coping and droved quoins to outer elevations. The inner elevations are of red brick, except for the west side which is roughly squared and snecked sandstone and whinstone with rounded rubble coping. A small rubble lean-to tool shed inside the garden has a blinded door and an open door to the south.

To the south of the house, terraced walls feature a rubble wall to the first terrace and a stugged ashlar ridge-coped wall to the second terrace (some arrangement taken from Kelloe House) with ashlar coped square-plan piers. The wall is broken centrally with a landing and four ashlar split steps either side, a pierced balustrade running south of the landing. A high-relief carved heraldic plaque is positioned south of the landing, with a date to the centre (possibly 1889).

A sandstone square-plan sundial with iron shadow-casters to three sides sits in the garden, with a dial to one side bearing numbers partly eroded or covered with lichen, and possibly a date (16??) carved above. Other carved sandstone stones found in the garden are presumed to have been taken from Kelloe House, Broom House, or other local estates where demolition occurred.