Lime Grove House

Substantial detached house in Victorian Italianate style, painted stucco with hipped slate roof, plain eaves cornice. Long rectangular building with facade on short S end and 2 large yellow brick stacks with stepped caps, containing 10 shafts, on roof hips to S and N. Two-storey and attic, channelled angle piers with floral capitals, moulded band between floors, plate glass sash windows in moulded stucco surrounds. Three-bay S front has 3 first floor sashes, 2 ground floor stuccoed canted bay windows added in the late C19, and central stuccoed porch, which has a modern replacement door under arched overlight. Additional bay to left has arched window over square-headed ground floor window. Long E side has 2 attic lead-roofed stucco dormers, with moulded arched heads and moulded arched surrounds to sash windows. First floor has 3 canted oriels, with plate glass sashes, dentilled cornices at main eaves level, and panels below sills. Also 2 plate glass sashes to left of central oriel and 1 to right. Ground floor has blank window to right of first oriel, then half-glazed panel door with overlight in columned porch. Two thin cast-iron columns and pilaster responds, corniced flat roof. Five sash windows to right. N end has 2 similar round-headed dormers, square-headed sash to first floor left and arched window right of centre, now door. Large added lean-to to ground floor and pyramid roofed 2-storey addition at NW corner. W side has 2-storey addition in angle to right and generally plate-glass sashes, some in moulded frames. Flat-roofed classroom additions of the 1930s to the rear.

The 1850s house has a central entrance and stair hall with rooms R and L. The extension follows this scheme with a central corridor along the length of both storeys. Few original details survive in the earlier part of the house. The drawing room on the L has retained a rich plaster cornice and there are 6-panel doors on the first floor. Other details belong to the 1880s enlargement and remodelling. From the porch there is a doorway to the entrance hall, which is in a half-glazed surround with etched glass. The doorway from drawing room to conservatory is in a similar surround. The open-well stairway has wreathed wooden handrail on cast iron balusters. A new entrance hall was created on the E side. Some rooms retain panelled shutters.

In the late C19 extension to the house the corridor has arches with fluted pilasters with egg-and-dart moulding to the capitals. There is also a full-height dog-leg service stair with turned balusters and newels.