23 Newcastle Drive

Detached house c1883-86, now converted into fats. Plans for conversion of house into flats c1935. Also known as Alcester House. Originally, stables at bottom of garden adjacent to Tennis Drive, converted to garage c1936 and subsequently demolished and redeveloped as 2no. ‘townhouses’ c1970-75. Three storeys plus attics and basement.Red brick facades with ashlar dressings and half-timbered attic storey.Gabled, plain tile roof with dormers and hipped bay. Full height canted window bay with hipped roof to left side of garden front and rectangular window bay to right side with flat roof, now altered with added steel railings to create external amenity space for upper flat. Later balcony added between bays on garden front, conflicting with large original window. Balcony now glazed and forming circulation link. Tile hanging on east facade under half-timbered gable. Gable ‘propped’ on red brick pilasters with shaped stone support brackets, moulded string courses and padstones. Other stonework details include moulded surrounds to doors and windows with pointed arched head to main entrance doorway on road front. Also, moulded string courses plus brackets, plinths etc, to chimney stacks and copings to castellated parapet on canted bay overlooking garden. Stonework has now been painted. Prominent half-timbered gables to plain tile roof with perforated, decorative clay ridge tiles and iron finials.Large dormer windows with half-timbered panelling overlooking road front and garden. Hipped plain tile roof over canted bay. Rooflights added. Tall red brick chimney stacks with splay brick detail to flues. Moulded stone caps and original buff fireclay chimney pots. Original rainwater fittings replaced and further pipework added. Mainly plain sash windows, some with leaded lights. Sash windows set in reveal within stone surrounds and partly concealed behind stone mullions and transoms. Mainly casements to attic storey. Red brick boundary wall to Newcastle Drive with painted stone saddleback copings. Small residual garden following redevelopment of original lower garden area and stables.