Court / Cwrt including screen wall and outside kitchen to service court

Court / Cwrt

A rendered rubble stone country house with slate hipped roofs grouted in the 20th century. The building comprises two storeys with a long five-bay west front displaying paired brackets to the eaves cornice on the front and right end walls, nogged brick eaves elsewhere, and two large rendered ridge chimneys. The windows are hornless 12-pane sashes. An arched timber Ionic porch with two columns and modillion cornice, much decayed, projects from the fourth bay and contains a six-panel door with four fielded panels, approached by stone steps.

The south end wall has two bays with 12-pane sashes above and 16-pane sashes below. The rear east return features a hipped roof and just two cambered-headed windows at mid-height, one blank and one lighting the stairs, with a basement light to the right. This section projects to the left of the main rear east wall, which has three bays including a centre window at half-level lighting a service stair. The fenestration comprises a 12-pane sash over a half-glazed door with overlight to the left, and a 12-pane sash over a four-pane sash to the right, with a basement light beneath the centre window.

The north end, facing the service court, has a whitewashed rubble lean-to with an asbestos sheet roof hipped to the right, containing a 20th-century window and board door to the yard, with a tripartite sash at the west end facing the front drive. The service yard is screened from the drive by a wall set at a slight angle to the main front. Behind this screen is a derelict open-fronted lean-to range with one enclosed bay to the rear, featuring a dummy window, dummy door, and one tripartite window facing the drive.

On the opposite side of the service court, linked to the house by a retaining wall, stands a lofted outside kitchen with an asbestos sheet roof, a large stone east end stack, and a sandstone ashlar bellcote on the west side. The south side contains a door and 12-pane sash with cut stone lintels incised as voussoirs and keystones. A small west end loft light is present, and a roofless rear lean-to adjoins the structure.

The entrance hall contains drawing and dining rooms to the right and stairs at the back. The kitchen unusually sits just left of the entry but is accessed from a spine corridor into the service range. The hall features two ceilings with simple cornices divided by an elliptical arch, the second ceiling incorporating an acanthus rose. Two doors on the right with deep panelled reveals open into the principal rooms. Elliptical arches lead to the stair to the east and the service passage to the north. The principal rooms have plaster cornices—more ornate in the southeast room with a guilloche moulding—six-panel doors, dado rails, simple timber surrounds to fireplaces with original iron grates, and panelled shutters.

The staircase has turned newels, stick balusters, and scrolled tread ends, rising in two enclosed flights to a broad landing running across the house, with rectangular ceiling and moulded cornice. A six-panel door at the west end of the landing opens to a narrow room; two doors lead to the main bedrooms to the southwest and southeast, both retaining original timber fireplace surrounds and grates, panelled shutters, and simple cornices. The southwest bedroom has no window to the front, only to the south side. Two doors on the north side of the landing lead to another bedroom and to the spine passage. A fourth bedroom opens from the west side of the passage, while a service stair on the east side leads up into the loft containing plastered attic rooms.

The service rooms to the left of the entrance hall include a kitchen featuring a triple arch detail to the north wall fireplace, beyond which is a back kitchen with tiled floor and south wall fireplace. East of the spine passage are a pantry, service stair, housekeeper's parlour, and in the rear lean-to, a slate-floored coal room. Beneath the foundations are extraordinary cellars cut with winding trench-like passages.

The screen wall and outside kitchen are integral to the service court arrangement, with the wall angled at a slight angle to the main front and the kitchen featuring distinctive architectural details including its large bellcote and decorative stone lintels.