West Cottage, Hillswick House, Hillswick

Hillswick House is a late 18th century house, possibly incorporating earlier fabric, with later additions. It is a single storey and attic, 3-bay symmetrical house situated overlooking a courtyard to the south. It is flanked by a single storey outbuilding to the west and a two-storey wing and small projecting section to the east. An additional range runs parallel to the west, including a store and a cottage to the north. The walls are harled, with painted droved sandstone ashlar dressings.

The main house is symmetrical, with a margined Venetian doorway at the centre, featuring a 6-pane fixed-light window on either side and a radial fanlight above. An ashlar forestair with a cast-iron railing leads to the doorway. Margined windows are in the flanking bays. Gabled timber dormers with decorative barge boards break the eaves in the outer bays. The rear elevation has a roofless lean-to at ground level and small windows at the principal floor, centred and to the left.

The west wing is a single-storey rubble store that encloses the west side of the courtyard. It has a blank elevation facing the courtyard, with a vertically-boarded timber door in the centre of the north gable and a modern opening offset in the south gable. The west elevation has a 6-pane fixed-light window with a raised cill in each of its four bays.

The east wing is a two-storey early 19th century section that returns to the east gable of the main house, stepping down to a single-storey, two-bay section to the south. There is a door and a square window facing the courtyard. The south gable is two bays wide, with a door at ground level in the left bay and regular fenestration in the right bay and at the first floor. The east elevation is irregularly fenestrated.

Classical square, stugged sandstone ashlar gatepiers with vertically jointed rustication, corniced caps, and ball finials mark the entrance to the courtyard, which is enclosed by harled walls.

The eastern range has blank elevations, apart from two vertically-boarded timber doors on the outer left of the west elevation and a wide vertically-boarded timber door centred at ground level in the south gable, with a fixed-light window above.

A store is aligned with the eastern range. It is gabled, has battered walls, and a door centring the east elevation.

The windows are mainly 4 and 12-pane timber sash and case windows. The roofs are purple-grey slate with concrete skew copes. A mix of harled rubble and rubble apex stacks are present on the gables of the house and wings, with stone copes and circular cans.

The cottage is single-storey and attic, with two porches on the south elevation. It has a blank elevation on the north and south sides.

Harl-pointed rubble boundary walls with a triangular rubble cope enclose a rectangular garden to the west. The north wall is articulated into a semicircular niche at the centre and continues east to the cottage.