Conabury House

Detached three-bay two-storey house, built c.1830 and modified 1917, having recent gabled glazed porch to front and single-storey bowed bay to north-west gable. Various single and two-storey blocks, now incorporated in house were formerly associated outbuildings and comprise two-bay two-storey block to south-east linked to house by four-bay single-storey range, two-storey block to rear with flat-roofed link, and recent addition enclosing small courtyard between it and house proper. House has hipped fibre-cement slate roof with fibre cement ridge tiles and overhanging timber eaves supported by paired carved timber brackets, two red brick chimneystacks to centre of ridge, with clay pots and over-sailing courses, and half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Pebbledashed walls with rusticated quoin strips and projecting plinth. Square-headed window openings with painted stone sills and replacement uPVC frames. Conical roof to bowed bay. Recessed entrance door opening to house proper with three-centred head, Ionic engaged columns holding moulded architrave over four-panel timber door with three-centred fanlight, and with limestone step. Fronts onto sloped garden over railway tunnel, to entrance gateway having double-leaf decorative metal gates set to rusticated concrete block boundary walls.

Connabury House has been a significant dwelling since at least the 1840s when it was recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map. Features such as the elegant front door, now within a porch, the wide overhanging eaves and the centrally set chimneystacks such a mid- to late eighteenth-century date. Its elevated site gives it prominence on the south side of the town and the fact of the railway tunnel passing under the front lawn adds interest to this historic property.