Ivy House

Ivy House is a detached house dating from the 19th century. The exterior is of unpainted pebbledash, with a slate roof and stacks at each end. The house has three storeys plus a basement, arranged in three widely-spaced bays. The upper floors retain original hornless sash windows, with 6-pane sashes on the second floor and 12-pane sashes on the first floor. The original centre doorway is flanked by late 19th-century shop windows. The doorway itself has a fine painted timber doorcase, featuring fluted pilasters, an entablature with a fluted frieze, and a cornice supported by two scroll brackets. The arched doorway has a fanlight with Gothic glazing bars, and an 8-panel door with a central vertical bead, the top six panels raised and fielded, and the bottom two flush. Thin sidelights are present on either side. The reveals and arch soffit have matching panels.

The shopfronts on each side have timber entablatures and cornices, with thin chamfered mullions between panes, and small spandrel brackets. The left-hand shopfront has four panes, canted in to a recessed half-glazed panel door with curved heads to the lights and a plain overlight. The shop window to the right is similar, leading to a more deeply recessed door up two steps. Two basement openings are visible on the front.

The left end wall is roughcast and has six windows, mainly 20th century, with an 8-pane hornless sash lighting the stairwell. The right end has a 20th-century window on the first floor, and a rear outshut is positioned at the angle of a rear right projection, with a hipped, south-facing roof. A cast iron street name plaque is set into the right end wall facing Cobb Lane.

Originally, the ground floor front range featured a central passage with a room on each side, although these dividing walls have since been removed. The interior retains good quality cornices and plasterwork. The former passage now features two bays of plaster vaulting with moulded ribs on small corbels and an acanthus rose. The right-hand front room has a cornice with oak leaves and a ceiling border depicting vines. A rear wall has an ornate recess with an elliptical arch, pilasters with fluted panels, moulded caps, an impost band carried around a coved recess, and an arched head with an outer leaf moulding, a vine-leaf border, and a fan back with an acanthus centre. An arched entry to the rear stair hall has reeded panels to the pilasters, a moulded arch, and a panelled reveal. The left-hand room has an undercut leaf cornice. The staircase is located on the left wall to the rear, and rises over four flights with a ramped rail, scrolled at the foot, stick balusters, a reeded string with scrolled tread ends, and a plain room at the rear.

The first-floor landing has two doors opening into the front rooms, a broad elliptical arch straight ahead, and one door to the left. The doorcases feature fluted panels to the pilasters and blind arches to the heads. The two doors to the front rooms have panelled reveals and a fluted impost band. A single front room, formerly two, has missing plasterwork in the centre, while the east and west parts retain a moulded cornice, ceiling border, and a guilloche rose. An elliptical arch features in the rear wall recess, with fluted panels to the pilasters, a moulded arch, and a panelled soffit, accompanied by panelled shutters.