Lime Grove House

Lime Grove House is a substantial detached house dating to the 1850s, constructed in the Victorian Italianate style. The external appearance is of painted stucco with a hipped slate roof and plain eaves. The long, rectangular building is oriented with its facade on the short southern end, and features two large yellow brick stacks with stepped caps, containing ten shafts, and roof hips to the north and south. The house is two storeys and has an attic. Channelled angle piers with floral capitals and a moulded band define the floors. The windows are plate glass sashes set within moulded stucco surrounds.

The three-bay south front has three first-floor sashes, along with two late 19th-century stuccoed canted bay windows on the ground floor. A central stuccoed porch features a modern replacement door under an arched overlight. An additional bay to the left includes an arched window above a square-headed ground-floor window. The long east side has two attic dormers with lead roofs, each with a moulded arched head and moulded arched surrounds to the sash windows. The first floor also features three canted oriels with plate glass sashes, dentilled cornices, and panels below the window sills. Additional plate glass sashes are located to the left of the central oriel and one to the right. The ground floor has a blank window to the right of the first oriel, and a half-glazed panel door with an overlight in a columned porch; this porch is supported by two thin cast-iron columns and pilaster responds with a corniced flat roof. Five sash windows are situated to the right. The north end has two similar round-headed dormers, a square-headed sash to the first floor on the left, and an arched window to the right of the centre, which is now a door. A large lean-to addition has been added to the ground floor, and a pyramid-roofed two-storey addition is located at the northwest corner. The west side features a two-storey addition at the angle to the right, and generally plate glass sashes, some within moulded frames. Flat-roofed classroom additions from the 1930s extend from the rear.

The original 1850s house is arranged around a central entrance and stair hall with rooms to the right and left. The later extensions follow this same layout, featuring a central corridor along both storeys. Few original features remain in the earlier part of the house. The drawing room on the left retains a rich plaster cornice, and six-panel doors are found on the first floor. Other details reflect the 1880s enlargement and remodelling. The porch provides access to the entrance hall, which has a half-glazed surround with etched glass. A similar surround frames the doorway from the drawing room to the conservatory. The open-well staircase has a wreathed wooden handrail on cast iron balusters. A new entrance hall has been created on the east side, and some rooms retain panelled shutters.

The late 19th-century extension includes a corridor with arches featuring fluted pilasters with egg-and-dart moulding to the capitals, and a full-height dog-leg service stair with turned balusters and newels.