St Tewdric

St Tewdric is a large Italianate villa built in the 1840s and 1850s. It is constructed of coursed squared Forest of Dean stone with near ashlar on the garden front and ashlar dressings. The ground floor features long-and-short quoins, with quoin pilasters above and a plat band running around the house at first floor level. The villa is centrally planned with rooms set around a top-lit staircase. It comprises two storeys with a distinctive three-storey tower positioned beside the entrance.

The entrance front faces east and contains four bays. The leftmost bay is a slightly projecting gabled section with a 6 over 6 pane sash on the ground floor in a keyed architrave with elliptical head, above which is a 2-light window with stone mullion and 1 over 1 sashes, topped by a gable with plain bargeboards. The second bay is recessed and contains the entrance door with side lights—panelled double doors in an arched head—and a 2-light window above matching the previous bay. The third bay is occupied by the tower, which projects forward. Its ground floor window sits in an architrave but contains a cross-framed casement, likely altered around 1900, while the first floor window matches those below but with a bracketed cill. The second floor is set back slightly and stands proud as a four-sided tower, each face having a tall 3-light window with stone mullions and arched heads. The tower features timber bracketed eaves cornice and a pyramid roof with tall weathervane. The fourth bay is a circa 1900 addition, evident from straight joints and slightly different stonework, with a ground floor window similar to the tower but not as tall, an upper blind floor, canted corner, and hipped roof end.

The garden front faces south and comprises three bays with the centre projecting under a gable. The ground floor of the centre bay has a tall projecting tripartite window with stone cills (3 + 6 + 3 panes), with the centre panes being french casements in the bottom two lights, and a moulded cornice forming the base of the first floor Venetian window (3 + 2 + 3), the centre window featuring marginal glazing. A stone stack rises on the ridge to the right of this bay. The flanking bays are identical to each other, each with a tall french casement with architrave frame on the ground floor (3 + 3 panes) and a paired arch-headed sash with marginal glazing above, with stacks on the gable ends.

The west elevation has been substantially altered by the addition of a hipped roof and a two-storey summer sitting-room standing on 4 by 3 Tuscan columns, a modification dating to around 1900. The sitting-room is timber-built with 3 by 3 pane windows with lattice lights on the west elevation and 2 by 3 on the south front. The remainder of this front has arched windows with marginal glazing or plain sashes and a door in the kitchen wing, which has two additional chimney stacks.

The north elevation displays the canted corner of the circa 1900 addition on the left, followed by a bay with a 2-light plate glass sash on each floor, then a single light sash, and a blind gable forming the end of the kitchen wing. This wing extends as a single-storey structure with larder, laundry and similar spaces beneath a hipped roof, forming part of the service yard behind.

The interior is relatively plain with no particularly large rooms. Dry rot has chiefly affected the staircase, kitchen wing, and one end of the dining room. The staircase is an open well stone cantilever stair with cast iron balustrade (two balusters to each step) and mahogany handrail, lit by a skylight above. The joinery throughout is stained or painted pine and mostly original. The sitting room features a circa 1900 fireplace with an elaborate Arts and Crafts surround. The summer sitting-room opening from it displays a pretty stair rail and windows characteristic of Eric Francis. The circa 1900 addition to the right of the tower contains further Arts and Crafts joinery and a fireplace with William de Morgan tiles. The upper floor is mostly plain but includes an elaborate Edwardian bathroom with a full set of sanitary fittings. The tower room is plain.