Colby Lodge

Colby Lodge is a three-storied house dating from the 18th century, with a lower three-story wing at the northeast. The house is rendered and painted with scored lines to resemble stone courses, and has a low-pitched slate roof with tile ridges and hips. Two rendered chimneys are present. Brackets and a timber fascia are visible at the eaves. The windows are sash windows with four panes, set in moulded architraves and featuring stone sills.

The north side of the house is the main approach, with three windows. A single-story porch with a recently added semicircular portico of two columns and two pilasters fronts the building. The south-facing garden front has four windows, with a tall stair window of the sash type, featuring coloured glass in margin lights, positioned third from the left. The main doorway appears misaligned beneath the stair window. Pilasters and an entablature have recently been added to the doorway. Roundel features are incorporated into the east and west end elevations in place of upper windows.

The earlier house, now incorporated as a wing, has three windows on its west elevation, including a tall round-headed stair window centrally. This section is rendered with a white roughcast and has a slate roof with a prominent chimney stack at the north end, with sash windows and later glazed doors. It has a cobbled yard to its east, where an old wash-house or laundry is now used as a generator room. The interior of this wing has been extensively altered.

The ground floor plan includes a corridor along the north side, from which the staircase begins. The staircase consists of four flights with a gentle pitch, featuring returned nosings over simple brackets, inch-square balusters, a mahogany handrail swept at the landings and coiled at the curtail step, and a side corridor leading to a south door. To the east is a former kitchen, and to the west are reception rooms now used as a drawing room and library. Stone-vaulted cellars are located beneath the eastern portion of the house.

The drawing room features a decorative plaster cornice and, at its east end, an alcove flanked by curved doors and two Corinthian columns and four Corinthian pilasters. The ceiling within the alcove has a groined centre panel flanked by fans. At the west end of the room is a black marble fireplace with lotus-capped pilasters and an overmantel mirror. The library has a black and white marble fireplace with early 19th-century decoration. A fireplace, presently not in situ, displays the Colby arms and crest.

The grounds include a large gravelled forecourt to the north, and gardens to the south and west ending at a ha-ha. The valley landscape beyond the ha-ha was formerly part of the private grounds. To the west of the valley are 18th-century pitmounds incorporated into the National Trust woodland gardens. A walled garden is located to the east.