Holt House and Attached Garden Walls

Details

SJ3788
392/33/10136

LIVERPOOL
ULLET ROAD
Holt House and attached garden walls

GV
II
Villa and attached garden walls, latterly nursing home, empty at time of inspection (May 1999). c1870, with late C20 alterations and additions. Built for Sir Robert Durning Holt. Finely-jointed red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings, hipped roof concealed by plain parapet, domed lantern and prominent ridge stacks. Welsh slate roof covering.
PLAN: L-shaped plan, with symmetrical garden front to south, and the left-hand side of the entrance front extending northwards.
EXTERIOR: FRONT (north) ELEVATION: Asymmetrical elevation of 2 storeys and attics above basement, 4 bays, with advanced off-centre entrance porch with paired Tuscan columns below entablature and frieze. Above, parapet with ashlar pilasters and coping, and central stone panel. The porch encloses double 3-panel doors set below a rectangular overlight, with narrow flanking lights. Above the porch, a Diocletian window to the centre of the elevation with an ashlar surround and a shallow pediment. Flanking pilasters extend upwards through a moulded cornice, and are expressed in the parapet. Each side of the porch are 6 over 6-pane sash windows with ashlar surrounds and gauged brick flat-arched heads, set within shallow recessed panels. Above a broad storey band, 3 smaller sash windows to left side and a single 12 pane sash to the right.
REAR (south) ELEVATION: 5 bays, with full-height canted bay windows to ends. Bay windows with 6 over 9 pane sashes to the ground floor, 6 over 6 pane windows to the first floor, and ornamental cast-iron balustraded above. Deep projecting cornice between floors. Central 3 bays with central ground floor opening adapted to form doorway with C20 joinery.
SIDE (west) ELEVATION: Basement level facing onto lower garden area to west, of 4 bays with stacked sash windows below a shallow parapet, behind which are set 2 gabled dormer windows. At basement level, 3 barred windows and a doorway are set beneath a continuous balcony with decorative balustrade, supported upon brick piers. This extends the full length of the elevation and connects with a terrace to the south front which is under built with brick walling. The walling incorporates circular ventilators and a central flight of steps with flanking walls, and is set below a parapet wall with ashlar-faced piers and an ashlar coping.
INTERIOR: C20 interior modifications in connection with institutional use have concealed, rather than destroyed original fabric and finishes. Entrance hall with polished granite columns and enriched plaster work to ceilings, arched openings and pilasters. Panelled doors with margin glazing. Painted glass panels and leaded panes within entrance joinery. Main stair hall with principal staircase to upper floor, set within well lit by dome with wide oculus and glazed indentations above panelled drum. The dome rises from a square ceiling panel with moulded rib work. Cantilevered stair with turned and reeded balusters moulded handrails and enriched newel posts with turned finials. Carved enrichment to plinth of upper floor landing balustrade with panelled soffit. Principal reception rooms at east and west ends, with elaborately decorated surrounds to full-height windows, decorated pelmets and full-height panelled shutters. End bay windows with reeded columns (west room) or pilasters (east room) between component lights, and enriched plaster work to bay ceilings. West room with tall rectangular wall panels above dado, east side wall with central chimneypiece and flanking doorways, each with 6-panel doors in architrave surrounds. The left-hand door has been relocated in the north-east corner.
ATTACHED GARDEN WALLS: Red brick walls with ashlar copings, approx. 3 metres high extend eastwards from south-west corner as an extension of the terrace walling, and northwards from the north-east corner, the latter wall incorporating a pedimented doorway at south end with flanking balustrading set into upper walling.
HISTORY: Holt House was the residence of Sir Robert Durning Holt (1832-1908), first Lord Mayor of Liverpool (1893-4).
A notable and finely-detailed late C19 villa established on the northern perimeter of Sefton Park, (opened in 1872) which became an architecturally distinctive suburb characterised by large houses set in extensive grounds; the residences of influential members of the industrial and commercial communities of late C19 Liverpool.
Forms group value with (item 392/33/10137).


Listing NGR: SJ3758188392

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