Rockmount

Detached three-bay two-storey over basement house with dormer attic, c.1845, incorporating fabric of earlier house, c.1695, with three-bay two-storey lean-to lower return to north-west. Burnt, 1923. Reconstructed and extended, 1924, comprising two-bay two-storey lower recessed end block to right (north-east), and two-bay two-storey return to north-west with single-bay single-storey lean-to end bay to north-west. Hipped roof (lean-to to return; pitched roofs to recessed end block with gables to window openings to first floor; lean-to to end bay) with replacement slate, 1924, clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, square rooflights, rendered coping to original return, profiled timber bargeboards to gables to recessed end block, and cast-iron rainwater goods on overhanging rendered eaves. Unpainted fine roughcast walls (part ivy-clad to front (south-east) elevation). Square-headed window openings with cut-stone sills. Replacement 2/2, 3/6 and 6/6 timber sash windows, 1924, with some 8/8 timber sash windows to recessed end block. Elliptical-headed door opening with three-cut-limestone steps, moulded rendered surround, timber panelled double doors with sidelights, and spoked fanlight. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds with gravel forecourt, and landscaped grounds to site.(ii) Gateway, c.1845, to south comprising pair of inscribed limestone ashlar circular piers with stringcourses, dome capping, and cast-iron double gates having foliate finials.

An appealing, middle-size house with a convoluted history, incorporating the fabric of an earlier late seventeenth-century house, and entirely reconstructed in the early twentieth century, having been a casualty of ‘The Troubles’ (1922 - 1923). Subsequently well maintained, the house presents an early aspect with important salient features and materials intact, both to the exterior and to the interior. The house forms an important element of the architectural heritage of the locality, while the gateway to the grounds presents an attractive feature fronting directly on to the road.