Crossways

Crossways, now divided into two houses at 2 and 4 Fairwater Road, is a house built of stone rubble with rendered walls and a Welsh slate roof. It dates from the 18th century and is built in the domestic Palladian style, with a double-depth, central-entrance plan. The two-storey house has a full attic storey and a three-bay front. It features full-height, three-light splayed bays at either end, with bracketed cills and a heavy cornice at attic level. The central first-floor window is set within a plain stuccoed aedicule, flanked by narrower windows. Below this is a doorway with flanking windows and a pillared and pedimented porch, which is a late 20th-century restoration of the original entrance, which had been converted into a window. The porch remains unfinished without plastered columns. Sash windows are present throughout, mostly with glazing bars. The attic windows have horns and are 6 over 6 panes, with four over four sashes in the central flanking windows.

House number 2 incorporates the right-hand full-height bay and a wing facing Cardiff Road, created from former dining, kitchen, and service rooms with bedrooms above. House number 4 contains the original central entrance, the left-hand full-height bay, and a garden wing, comprising a drawing room, staircase, ballroom, billiard room, and bedrooms.

The right return (number 2) displays four bays of 6 over 6 sash windows, with an inserted doorway and a modern pillared porch on the ground floor. A Victorian brick stack is attached to the upper floor, and there is an addition to the right with a gabled dormer. Two large Victorian three-flued stacks are located on the ridge. This part of the house, originally service rooms, was improved and extended around 1880.

The interior of house number 2, which originally consisted of service rooms and lesser bedrooms, is reported to be plainer and more altered than that of house number 4.