Whitney Villa including Railed Forecourt

Whitney Villa, including its railed forecourt, is a house dating back to the 17th century, with later additions and alterations. The house is constructed of rubble stone with a slate roof, featuring a brick centre and gable stacks. The south-west front presents an irregular facade. The first floor has square casement windows, two panes over two panes, positioned off-centre to the right, with three-pane-over-three-pane casements to the left and right, all with thin stone sills. The ground floor has corresponding casements under segmental stone arches, each arch constructed with stone voussoirs. The entrance doorway is off-centre to the left, sheltered by a mid-19th century flat canopy supported by shaped consoles and featuring a six-panel door. To the left of the doorway is a blocked segmental arched doorway. The back elevation, on the left side of the house, has a two-storey addition with 19th-century sash windows featuring marginal panes. The gable on this addition has a repositioned 17th-century plank and batten door fitted with ‘trident’ hinges. On the first floor of the main house, to the right, is a 17th-century three-light ovolo mullion window.

A raised garden, enclosed by decorative iron gates and railings, overlooks the roadway at the front of the house.

The main entrance leads into a cross passage. The principal ground-floor rooms to the left and right have four-panel doors. The parlour to the right contains a 17th-century walk-in cupboard featuring scratch moulded panels and an open panel with splat balusters at the top. There is a 19th-century parlour fireplace with an arched register grate. To the left of the cross passage, at the rear, is a pantry with an 18th-century plank and batten door and strap hinges. Opposite the pantry is a mid-19th-century dog-leg staircase, featuring an open string and plain balusters. Adjacent to the staircase, the ground-floor back wall displays two 17th-century wooden mullion windows—one a two-light window with a chamfered frame, and the other a three-light window with ovolo moulding—both with lattice glazing and iron stanchions. These windows were formerly external but are now enclosed within a 19th-century kitchen extension. On the first floor, an attic lobby contains a 17th-century plank door with strap hinges. The habitable attic is divided by a central stone wall, with the south-east section being three bays; the trusses have feet of principal rafters tenoned into ceiling beams below, and one truss has an added collar. The north-west section is two bays and has similar trusses, one with an added collar. In the attic, the north-west gable features a 17th-century two-light ovolo mullion window with iron stanchions and lattice glazing. A cellar, accessible from the back kitchen, has a good 17th-century entrance doorway, the doorframe displaying a scratch moulded design with a rectangular ventilation panel featuring five turned balusters in the head.