Description

BECK HEAD 1. 5166 No 8 (Fountain House) formerly listed as Nos 6 and 8 (Fountain House) SD 6078 NE 5/5 12.2.62 II GV

2. Mid C18 house. Two storeys. Stucco with stone dressings. Slate roof. Five bay symmetrical composition. Plinth. Chamfered rusticated quoins. Modillion cornice with blocking course. Windows with plain stone surrounds and sashes without glazing bars. Doorway has three-quarter Ionic columns, pulvinated frieze, modillion cornice and pediment. Six panel door. Rectangular fanlight. Low stone wall across front with small stone gatepiers from which springs wrought iron arch. The rear is of rubble, with quoins and kneelers. Windows with plain stone surrounds, sashed with all glazing bars. Large staircase window with plain surround, its lower half sashed with all glazing bars, upper half a fixed Gothick head considerably wider than the jambs with intersecting glazing bars. To left of this small staircase window with glazing bars lights back stairs. Plain doorway with four panel door, top glazed. Interior. Decorated consistently with Classical motifs intermixed with Gothick. Doors of six raised and fielded panels, and similar shutters, throughout. Room to left at front has Ionic cornice, and elaborate wooden chimneypiece with consoled cornice and Gothick cusping in frieze. Room to right at front has large plain oval recess in wall. Front hall and staircase separated by wooden arch with large frets on jamb and soffit. Room at rear has fitted cupboard to right of altered chimney- breast. Main staircase with Ionic modillion cornice. Two flight dogleg open string stairs and landing with turned balusters, moulded brackets and ramped moulded hand- rail. Elaborate queue on columnar newel, from which issues another short rail and queue which runs back to level of back door. The other newels are square, sunk panelled and linked to each other or descending rail by trefoils. Parallel and adjoining runs back staircase, with four flight dogleg closed string stair and landing. Turned balusters and simple handrail. First floor room at front on right has elaborate wooden chimneypiece. Probably contemporary inner chimneypiece of wood with Rococo embellishment. Heavy collar roof.

Listing NGR: SD6105078761

External Links

• Wikidata Q26438938

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Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)