ROSE BROW (continued)

Gateacre Grange. Main house - two building stages apparent:

First (South) section: built 1851 (?) architect Cornelius Sherlock; rock-faced sandstone, Gothic revival in massing and mood though not wholly in architectural vocabulary. Note the High Victorian features e. g. polychromatic fish-scale slating, blocks in the eaves cornice, chimney stacks with each flue separate (tops have recently been removed) and lancets in gables and compare with the 'Cobblers Shop'. (Square cut bays to East and South are additions.)

Second (North) section: built c.1883-4: architect not named (also Sherlock ?) in rock-faced sandstone and very much in keeping with Domestic Revival architecture of the late C19, with gables reminiscent of Cotswold vernacular buildings; note also relieving arches over larger windows, massive chimneys. The bays probably of this same date added to the mid C19 block include 'Ipswich' window features popularised by Norman Shaw - but with the curved transoms cut in stone as a technical tour de force.

Stables: buildings round three sides of the stable yard, stables coach houses etc.; contemporary with the first section of the house; architect also Cornelius Sherlock (?) with similar rock-faced sandstone and eaves cornice detail and polychromatic slating and High Victorian details. Post-war alterations to the block facing Rose Brow when the upper floor was converted to domestic use.

Gate Piers. (Octagonal caps of High Victorian type adorn the grounds) The present caps - on stylistic grounds - probably date from c.1883 and the small grotesque carvings (including a portrait of the owner ?) repay a look. From the fact that the motto 'CURA ET INDUSTRIA' now faces the building instead of the road, we deduce that the caps have been reversed at some time since the Walkers left c.1917.

continued . . .