Once this would have been a highly kept Villa with splendid paneling, high ceilings and roaring fireplaces, now left to the mercy of the weather.
It was possible to view both the upper floor and the lower floor while standing on parts of the ground floor. Where the roof was intact, the floor was well covered and had little wear, but with sections that were exposed to the rain, the floor was very brittle and often missing in parts. The front room would have been an excellent welcoming feature of the house when you came up from the winding driveway.
Sandfield Tower is a four story Villa and has a very large basement area, such is the norm for a house of the period. There are 10 doorways in total. Although they have been standing empty for sometime, they are still in good condition, although it is difficult to tell how well they were furnished, if at all. Certainly, some will have been used to store coal for the fireplaces above, and there is evidence of electrical equipment when the house was wired. Other basement areas would have been used for storage and perhaps prayer rooms when the Sect was using the building. Below ground, there is evidence of windows bricked up in some of the cellar rooms while in others, the window area reaches to the floor suggesting possibly a coal chute.The basement area, although stripped of fixtures and fittings, is one of the more untouched areas of the building due to being underground and secure. The rooms are dry and do not collect water and it is possible to stand up fully in each basement room. There could be various possibilities for these rooms to be used, from gym rooms to storage areas depending on the future use of the building.The basement was accessed from the main staircase, but also from that of the outside by a set of steps which have now been taken away and blocked up for security reasons. This may well have even been servants quarters at one time.
The exterior of the building shows that upstairs appears to be the same dimensions as the ground floor, with the porch area now part of the sandstone tower rising up through the building.
From the ground floor hall, the staircase is a single flight up to the second level. It finishes on the right hand side and meets the second floor where it is possible to access all rooms from this location. s this is an internal staircase, there is no landing window at the end of the building so as is the norm in older houses, a window in the roof is there for maximum light. From the second floor, we walk down the landing in to the floor of the tower. Here is a well-lit room due to the main window facing from the front of the building. The room is L shaped and it is possible to walk through from this room to the next room which is in the left hand corner of the building, above the small room which is downstairs to the left of the porch. There is a side door from the left hand side room which leads in to the main back bedroom. Here is a room of good size which matches the footprint of the room downstairs. Three large windows let the natural light in to this room, and although not as grand as the windows downstairs, they are of good proportion. A fireplace sits on the right hand side of the room which has a door either side to adjacent rooms, perhaps leading to a private bathroom. There is still a high ceiling to the bedroom and it is very spacious in overall dimension.
Crossing the landing from the rear rooms to the front room, here again is a very large bedroom with the same size dimension as the front room below.
At the far external wall is a fireplace to heat the room and a view from the 3 large front windows allows a view across the road and beyond. Here is a room with high ceilings and beautiful cornice in area's of the room. The painted plaster work on the wall is fresh and this appears to be the main bedroom commanding such glorious views. Leading off this room is a smaller room to the side of the property, as a bathroom.
BEDROOM 1 CENTRAL TOWER LANDING BEAMS ROOF AREA STAIRCASE
Although it is not possible to get to the second floor due to the absence of stairs in the property, it is plain to see that most of the rooms are in a very poor state. Missing roof space to the right hand side of the property is damaging all the woodwork for the ceiling, or at least what is left of the ceiling and most of the ceiling on both floors disappeared when the building was fire damaged.
It is still possible to get an idea of the upstairs rooms as they appear to mirror the size of the downstairs rooms and are large in proportion. How splendid it would have been to take a view from the finished Master bedroom when first built to see very little
built up in the surrounding area.
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