Tresta House, Tresta

Tresta House, Tresta

A mid 19th and early 20th century building incorporating earlier fabric. The complex comprises a 2-storey, 8-bay house and post office: a 3-bay house to the east with an L-plan wing projecting to the rear, and a 5-bay post office to the west, with a wall adjoining the west gable. A long range of single-storey outbuildings extends northwards and southwards, oriented north-south. Walled gardens lie to the north and south of the principal building, with a well located to the east in the north garden.

The walls are whitewashed, harled and cement-rendered and lined, with stugged and droved sandstone dressings to the older part.

The principal southwest elevation presents a 5-bay asymmetrical composition. The post office occupies the left portion with doors in the bays to the left of centre and to the outer right. Gabled dormers break the eaves at the centre bay, the bay to the outer left, and the penultimate bay to the right. Windows of various sizes occupy the ground storey. The 3-bay house to the right displays a symmetrical arrangement. A vertically-boarded timber door with a plate glass fanlight sits at ground level in the centre bay, with windows in the flanking bays. Gabled dormers breaking the eaves sit in each bay.

The east gable contains a single window at first-floor level to the left.

The north (rear) elevation shows a 3-bay house section to the left with a gabled dormer breaking the eaves at first-floor level in the outer left bay. A piend-roofed wing advances at the centre bay, with lean-to additions to the east (stone, timber and corrugated iron) and in the re-entrant to the west. The post office section comprises 3 widely-spaced bays to the right, blank at ground level and regularly fenestrated at first floor.

Windows throughout are predominantly 4-pane timber sash and case windows of varying designs. The roof is covered in purple-grey slate with concrete skew copes. Stugged sandstone apex stacks with ashlar copes and circular cans serve the house, while cement-rendered and lined stacks serve the post office.

Two outbuildings adjoin to the north and south as a long range. Both feature whitewashed harl-pointed rubble walls.

The east elevation of the outbuildings displays a pair of vertically-boarded timber doors to the outer left. A 3-bay elevation of the north building occupies the right, with a door and window in the outer right bay and vertically-boarded timber doors in the centre and left bays.

The west elevation contains a single vertically-boarded timber door centring the elevation of the south building, and another to the right of centre in the north building.

The outbuilding roofs are purple-grey slate with cast-iron gutters and downpipes and concrete skew copes. A coped apex stack with circular can crowns the north gable, while a weathercock on an iron bracket adorns the south gable.

The well is a square-plan structure with a harled concrete wall, vertically-boarded timber door, purple-grey slate pyramidal roof, and internal steps leading down to the water.

The garden and retaining walls enclose and bound the property. A random rubble wall encloses the north garden and bounds the road at the north, with a semicircular-plan wall to the west adjoining the north gable of the outbuildings and terminating to the south at a rubble gatepier. A corresponding wall and gatepier stand to the west. The east drive is bounded by south and north walls of the north and south gardens respectively. Large whitewashed stugged sandstone gatepiers with concrete steps to the south sit in the north wall of the south garden, centred opposite the house door. A watercourse with rubble walls runs east-west through the garden, bisected by a Chinese bridge of 1993 at its centre, with concrete steps to the south. A random rubble retaining wall to the east features steps at the west. A 2-leaf vertically-boarded timber gate adjoins the west elevation of the principal building, with a concrete pier topped by a pyramidal cap.