Description

1909. Large 2-storey and attic near symmetrical villa with asymmetrical single storey and attic wing, in contemporary designed garden with associated garden features. English Arts and Crafts style with capacious slated roofs, low swept and bracketted eaves with plain bargeboards at gables, slate hung gables; mullioned and transomed windows with leaded glazing, tall axial corniced stacks. Ground floor of cream ashlar; vertically slated at 1st floor; attic contained within low swept slightly bellcast roof. L-plan single storey and attic service wing to S in cream snecked ashlar with slate roof and wallhead gablets.

NE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: cream ashlar to ground floor; vertically slated at 1st floor, jettied slightly from plane of ashlar wall below, further jettied at slated attic gableheads. Entrance to centre in steppd moulded ashlar doorcase, recessed flat-arched tympanum with joggled voussoirs, narrow transomed side lights with leaded glass flanking; 3 tripartite stair windows over, with painted metal mullions and decorative stained glass roundels (see INTERIOR); 4-light attic window with timber mullions. 2 outer gabled bays with 2-storey 5-light polygonal bay windows, ashlar windows with transom at ground floor, slated half-way to cills of single windows at 1st, flat roofed with timber dentilled cornices over; 4-light horizontal attic windows in slated gableheads. GARDEN (W) ELEVATION: symmetrical, 3 broad gabled bays with horizontal divisions as at entrance elevation. 2-storey, 3-light canted bay windows to each bay, with mullioned and transomed ground floor windows, bipartites at 1stfloor; 2-leaf leaded glass door opening from left hand bay window (formerly from dining room, now lounge) to terraced garden; a second garden entrance to right of centre of bay window projection to entrance hall.

Inscription and date panel to left in mock medieval manner (see NOTES).

2-bay single storey and attic SERVICE WING recessed to right, attic window to left on W elevation linked to 1st floor of main block, L-plan to E with projecting gabeld bay to left; tripartite mullioned windows at ground and attic on W and E fronts; 4-light on S.

Vertically slated heads to all gables. Small single storey addition with steeply pitched roof to N built 1977.

INTERIOR: subdivided (1977), but retaining much of original scheme, inlcuding: plasterwork at ceilings and cornices, with naturlastic carving at ground floor principal rooms; timber panelling, in NW lounge (originally dining room); original billiards room with full-height wainscot and ceiling with decorative plaster borders; principal staircase with turned timber balusters (altered slightly at foot); 9 stained glass roundels at 1st floor stair landing in neo-medieval style, depicting historical and biblical scenes (Henry V; Mary and Joseph etc.). Oval lantern over principal stair with decorative plaster cornice, lantern infilled; original plasterwork surviving beneath false ceiling of original hall (now bedroom).

GARDEN: snecked rubble terrace walls with ashlar cope and nall finials to N of house; sunken garden on 2 levels approached at W, N and S by ashlar steps with cope and ball finials in 2 stages; square plan single storey SUMMER HOUSE to NW, cream snecked sandstone rubble to deep batterd base, cream ashlar above; tripartite windows to 3 elevations, slated pyramidal roof with swept overhanging eaves. Octagonal timber summer-house with slate roof to N of garden wall.

GATEPIERS AND LINKING WALLS AT SW ENTRANCE; 4 square-plan polished ashlar piers, moulded at arrises, with plinths, cornices and ball finials, linked on concave curve by snecked rubble coped walls.

Statement of Interest

Built for William Alexander Collins, of the publishing dynasty.

Subdivided into 4 flats.

Inscription panel on W elevation: "Domus Collinsorum Aedificavit MDCCCIXNisi Dominus Aedificaverit Domus in Vanum Laboraverunt Qui Aedificant Eum".

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17569540

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

• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)