Description

Mid 19th century. Large, 2-storey L-plan, Jacobethan villa with square 3-stage entrance tower and small attached L-plan service court. Stugged cream sandstone ashlar with polished dressings. Base course; band course above ground floor; moulded eaves; long and short raised quoins. Regular fenestration; windows with buckle tabs; 1st floor windows breaking eaves with gabled dormerheads; curvilinear gables; finials.

W (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: tower at centre (see below). Broad blank gabled bay to right with projecting wallhead stack at centre; strapwork cresting at band course and 3 cans. Single storey bay to left with gable to N; garden range set back behind with 2-bay gable to left, blind windows to both floors, and staircase window to right.

TOWER: massive elaborate doorpiece with engaged inverted tapering square columns, fan capitals, entablature with decorated frieze and blind fretted parapet with piers and finials; roll-moulded basket-arched doorway with keystone; 2-leaf panelled doors and letterbox fanlight. 2nd stage with basket-arched bipartite window to W and rectangular window to N; entablature. 3rd stage with round-headed bipartite windows; corner pilasters; blind fretted frieze and heavy cornice; blind fretted parapet, with cartouche at centre to W. Lead ogee roof and finial.

S ELEVATION: 3-bay; ground floor windows basket-arched with roll-moulded arrises and projecting ashlar frames; each with cornice, pierced parapet and urn finials. Gabled right bay slightly advanced with tripartite window at ground; 1st floor window with cornice and cresting; blank shield in gablehead. Centre bay with canted window at ground.

E ELEVATION: 3-bay. Blank right bay gabled and advanced (stack removed) with door inserted at ground. Re-entrant angle with window at ground and small windows to both faces at 1st floor.

N ELEVATION: 3 bays to left; 1st floor windows with triangular gables; left bays with later link at ground. 2 bays set back to right; left bays with windows in re-entrant angle and half gable abutting tower; right bay with projecting single storey gable at ground and tower above (see above).

SERVICE COURT: attached to N. Irregular 2-bay block; 1st floor windows breaking eaves with gabled dormerheads and finials; gables to E and W. Gabled single storey additions to W, and to link; harled with reconstituted stone dressings. Later windows.

Timber sash and case windows; plate glass, 4-pane and 12-pane. Grey slates; ashlar coped skews; corbellled skewputts.

Corniced linked octagonal ashlar apex stacks.

INTERIOR: thoroughly converted to institutional use.

GATEPIERS AND BOUNDARY WALL: ashlar gatepiers with base chamfered angles, cornice and ball finials resited (and truncated) at entrance to service court. Rubble boundary wall with ashlar coping; later wall to E.

Statement of Interest

The plot to the E was originlly part of the garden, the owners of Mount St Michael (as it was called) building a new house on it when selling up.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17851215

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990