Survey Data
Reg No
11903713
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Farm house
In Use As
Farm house
Date
1795 - 1800
Coordinates
271565, 187023
Date Recorded
--/--/--
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay three-storey house, dated 1796, on a symmetrical plan retaining early fenestration. Extended and part refenestrated, c.1900, comprising three-bay two-storey block to rear to north-east. Renovated, c.1950, with single-bay single-storey projecting glazed porch added to centre. Hipped roofs with slate (artificial slate to porch). Clay ridge tiles. Rendered chimney stacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast walls. Unpainted. Cut-stone date stone/plaque. Square-headed window openings. Stone sills. Moulded architraves to ground floor. 1/1 timber sash windows (possibly replacement, c.1900). 2/2 timber sash windows to top floor. Concrete sills to porch. Fixed-pane timber windows. Square-headed door opening. Glazed timber panelled door. Overlight. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own landscaped grounds. Forecourt and lawns to front. Detached three-bay single-storey gate lodge, c.1850, to south-west with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch to centre. Extensively renovated, c.2000. Gable-ended roof (gabled to porch). Replacement artificial slate, c.2000. Concrete ridge tiles. Rendered chimney stacks. Timber eaves and decorative bargeboards. Replacement uPVC rainwater goods, c.2000. Roughcast walls. Painted. Square-headed window openings. Stone sills. Replacement uPVC casement windows, c.2000. Square-headed door opening. Replacement glazed timber panelled door, c.2000. Gateway, c.1850, to south-west comprising pair of rendered piers with cut-granite ball finials.
Appraisal
Levitstown House is a fine and substantial late-Georgian farm house that has been well-maintained and which retains much of its original character. The scale of the house is unusually large for this early period and suggests that it was built by a local landlord of considerable wealth and status in the locality. It is also probable that the running of the attendant estate would have historically provided much employment in the locality and the complex is therefore of considerable social interest. The house is composed on a symmetrical plan, of graceful proportions and is austerely detailed - decoration is introduced only in the moulded architraves to the window openings to ground floor. Although extended in the early twentieth century (and again with the addition of the porch in the mid twentieth century), the house retains much of its original features and materials, including timber sash fenestration (the variety of which indicates the shifting of tastes over the years) and a slate roof, together with internal features such as timber panelled shutters to the window openings. Part of an extensive estate, the house is complemented by a range of outbuildings to south and a gate lodge to south-west, while the estate is announced on the road side by a simple gateway. The estate is composed of fine and mature landscaped grounds that are an attractive feature in the locality.