Foley House

Foley House is a two-storey villa rendered in 20th-century spar-dash with a cement rendered plinth and roofed in 20th-century concrete tiles. The roof is hipped to the right with no chimneys (it formerly had one at the left end and one on the ridge right of centre).

The front elevation is five bays wide with a slightly projected pedimented three-bay centre. The pediment features flat mutules and tiny dentils to the verges (originally also to the pediment base and eaves soffits each side, now plain). A circular window occupies the tympanum. The first floor has five square windows with horned 6-pane glazing. The ground floor has a plinth with two arch-headed niches flanking a large arched central doorway. The entrance itself is a 20th-century renewal with a radiating-bar fanlight over double panelled doors and sidelights. The outer bays contain arched windows set within arched recesses; these are small-paned hornless sashes with radiating-bar heads. The left window is dummy.

Attached to the left with a slightly lower roof and plain close eaves is a short windowless section. The south front overlooks a terrace with 20th-century concrete paving and metal railings, flanked by two quadrant walls with raised end piers and an arched centre feature. The left quadrant has 20th-century infill behind with a flat roof, and its arch is blind. The right quadrant has an arched door to the former garden.

The right end, elevated over a basement, displays a fine pedimented composition with a full pediment matching the front detail and a roundel window. Three arched first-floor windows with late 19th-century French-window glazing open onto the flat roof of a large canted projection. This projection features three 12-pane large sashes, a moulded cornice, and fine cast-iron latticed rails. The basement is rendered with a shallow centre arched recess (originally deeper arches appeared on all three faces).

The garden front is a fine five-bay composition with slightly projected centre three bays, a similar pediment and roundel, and matching eaves each side. Five square 6-pane upper sashes sit above a band, with five ground-floor 12-pane sashes below; the centre three occupy big arched recesses carried down to a high plinth. Five arched recesses to the basement replace former short arched windows with radiating glazing bars. The two left windows on both ground and first floors are dummy. The service range to the right is altered: it is two storeys, two bays wide, with four-pane sashes and a 20th-century glazed door to the left bay, reached by a flight of ten stone steps with plain wrought-iron rails.

The plan is inventive, with the entrance leading into a stair hall that extends to the left, with the stair parallel to the front wall. A large drawing-room occupies the east end, and a smaller dining-room sits at the rear parallel to the stair hall. A service stair is housed in the left wing, with a small room, possibly once a morning-room, behind.

The interior features panelled reveals inside the front door. The rectangular hall has a modillion cornice. The ceiling inside the front door carries a square ceiling decoration with a plain plaster circle and fluting in the spandrels. A cantilevered Bath stone staircase to the left rises in two flights with a wrought-iron scrolled balustrade. The stair-hall is apse-ended at ground floor with a curved 6-panel door at the west end. Six-panel doors with bordered sunk panels open into the east end drawing-room to the right and the rear dining-room opposite the front door. Similar borders appear to panels in reveals and shutters.

The dining-room has a simple plaster cornice with roses in the frieze and a veined marble chimneypiece with incised panels and rosettes in the upper corners. A mid to late 19th-century thick ceiling rose is installed. A timber plate shelf on simple brackets runs around the room. Two doors occupy the fireplace wall, one in the east wall, and a plain elliptical arched sideboard recess appears in the west end wall. The drawing room has an ogee-curved east wall, following the line of the canted bay. An acanthus cornice with undercut long leaves adorns it. Two doors in panelled reveals occupy the west wall. Stairs rise to a landing with similar balustrade. The stair hall cornice has fluted modillions. From the landing a spine passage runs east with an archway to a lobby giving entry to bedrooms and dressing rooms. Most of these upper rooms are altered, but a small north room and larger northwest room retain undercut small cornices.

The servants' stair is much altered up to the first floor but survives to the attic. It has plain square balusters, a closed string, and column newels, consisting of one long flight and a short flight at right angles. The attic has principal rooms lit by roundel windows.