The Elms 194 Whitegate Drive Blackpool

Former house, now part of school. 1896, with minor late C20 alterations. Coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings to front elevation, red brick elsewhere. Irregular 'L' plan. Front elevation: 2 storeys, 3 bays; an elaborate and asymmetrical front with central doorway enclosed within open flat roofed porch. Porch entrance with slender marble columns with foliated capitals supporting shallow arched heads to entrance and flanking lights. Enclosed doorway within decorative surround, with slender engaged columns to jambs, and tall overlight with stilted arched head. Gabled bay to left with advanced bay to ground floor, of 2 lights with a 4 part overlight. Moulded cornice links with that of porch as continuous moulding Above, a canted first floor bay with lead canopy. Ornate gable with slender corner turrets with pinnacles, and an elaborate carved apex finial. Right hand bay not gabled, but with matching arrangement of bays below a stepped parapet. Corbelled turrets to corners with circular crenellated caps. Rear range on left side has tall side wall chimney and projecting stair turret with stepped lancets to upper part. Right side with canted corner linking front and rear ranges, the latter with plain undivided sash frames. C20 joinery elsewhere. INTERIOR; largely unaltered, with much original decorative ceiling and wall plasterwork, and high quality joinery including panelled doors with moulded architraves and carved cresting, well-finished and ornate principal staircase with stained glass lights to lower partition, and elaborate chimney pieces with overmantles. HISTORY; the house, named 'The Elms' was built for William and Sarah Powell in 1896, and became a school in 1922. The other buildings on the school site are not of special interest.