Ashley House : Park Drive

Large detached house c1876 by architect S. Dutton Walker. Now converted into flats. Two storeys plus basement and attics. Red brick with ashlar dressings and gabled slate roof. Late 20c additions to form separate dwellings adjacent to house facing Cavendish Road East including, two storey gabled extension with single storey flat roofed abutment replacing earlier glasshouse, plus pair of semidetached two storey dwellings with gables and dormers replacing original outbuildings. A number of alterations to house including, early 20c single storey bow window bay extension on garden front. Large part of original garden area adjacent to Holles Crescent also separately developed, late 20c, into Ashley Bungalow. Complex massing with numerous gables, gabled dormers and variety of bays. Profusion of brick and terracotta detail including decorative corbelled, sawtooth and nailhead mouldings to eaves, gables and gable verges plus brick insets and ornamental tiles to panels over some doors and windows, particularly on polygonal window bay. Stonework features include variety of moulded dressings to door and window openings including shafts with floriated capitals. Also, bracketed stone sill projections, hoodmoulds, string courses and ribs with bosses on polygonal bay. Irregular roof form with double pitched and gabled slate roofs, intersecting and at varying levels. Decorative red clay ridge tiles plus red brick chimney stacks with splayed plinths, string courses and corbelled caps. A number of roof windows added. Original rainwater fittings replaced and further pipework added. Mainly plain sash windows with a number of alterations and additions. Original brick and stone boundary wall to Cavendish Road East replaced by later dwellings and garage. Coursed rubble stone boundary wall adjacent to house on Park Drive with square stone gate piers. Brick and stone boundary wall on Park Drive adjacent to garden area with later openings and piers.