TYPES OF HOUSES

Catcleugh House - is a late Victorian mansion built in 1893 located in Catcleugh, Rochester. The house was built by the then Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company for Charles Hawksley, son of renowned reservoir and waterworks architect and engineer Thomas Hawksley. The T and C Hawksley company had been commissioned by the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company (now referred to as Northumbrian) to build a reservoir in Catcleugh that would supplement Newcastle-upon-Tynes dwindling fresh water supply.
The mansion has been maintained and owned by Northumbrian Water for most of its life and had been used primarily as a recreational site and for visitors and guests before being sold during 2006. It is now the main residence of private equity, who notably becomes the second formal resident of the property in over a hundred years.

Horstead Hall' - was a country house in Norfolk that was demolished in the 1950s.
The village of Horstead in the county of Norfolk is not short of country houses. Towards Norwich lie Horstead House and Heggatt Hall, while towards Buxton lies the Horstead Hall estate. The house lay in the middle of substantial park. A seventeenth-century house stood here until 1835, when it was rebuilt in the Tudor style.
Owners included the Batcheler family (18th century), the Suffields and latterly the Birkbecks. Sir Edward Birkbeck entertained Prime Minister Lord Salisbury there in 1887. During World War II the house was requisitioned by the War Office and used by a cipher unit, who put up numerous huts in the grounds.
The estate was sold in 1947 and the house came down soon after. Today part of the estate is used for quarrying. Substantial estate buildings survive, and part of the house remains, albeit in derelict condition. A pipe organ from the house is in the church at Ashby St. Mary.

Bronwydd, Cardiganshire - was a country house in Wales.
'Bronwydd, Cardiganshire', home to the Lloyd Family, Bronwydd replaced Cilrhiwe as the main family home in the 1850s, at which time it was rebuilt in the fashionable gothic revival style by Sir Thomas Lloyd, 1st Baronet. The architect was R.K.Penson, who skillfully adapted an existing eighteenth century house to create an elaborate Victorian gothic 'castle' suitable for the 'Marcher Lord' of Cemais. The eighteenth-century house contained a private chapel, the Lloyds of that era having been converts to Methodism, while the reconstructed Bronwydd included a baronial hall, containing the family muniments and serving as entrance hall. The exterior of the building included a tall, slim round tower and a square tower with bell-turret. Part of the house is supposed to have been modelled on the cathedral transept and tower of the Rock of Cashel, Ireland, although Thomas Lloyd described the whole as 'a romantic Rhineland castle with patterned roof-tiling.' The stables and service block were rendered in mock half-timber, similar to the streets of Chester. The house was sited on a bluff overlooking a river.
The interiors were splendid, with painted mottoes above the doors, a profusion of carved stone, stained glass and mural paintings. The expense of such medieval fantasies rested heavy on the estate, which was in debt to the tune of £100,000 when Sir Thomas' son, Sir Marteine Lloyd inherited the estate in 1877. Prudent management and the sale of outlying lands restored some solvency to the estate in the years prior to the First World War. The death of Sir Marteine's son, Arundel Keymes Lloyd in the Great War doomed the estate, however. The Inland Revenue demanded death duties on the estate, which had been made over to Arundel Lloyd in order to avoid those same duties. For much of the post-war period, Sir Marteine and Lady Lloyd lived away from Bronwydd, although they celebrated their Golden Wedding in 1928 in some style.
Sir Marteine Lloyd died in 1933, and Lady Lloyd attempted to let the house, which ended up housing refugees. On Lady Lloyd's death in 1937, the house and grounds were sold. The sale of land close to the mansion for forestry work doomed the house. After housing a Jewish boarding school, Aryeh House School, in the Second World War, and refugees thereafter, the house, then known as Bronwydd Castle, was stripped. Substantial parts of the house remained roofed into the 1980s. The round tower fell in the early years of the twenty-first century, and much of the house has disappeared.

Ardgillan - is a large country house with castellated embellishments built by the Rev. Robert Taylor in 1738. It stands on the elevated coastline commanding magnificent views of the Irish Sea. The house consists of two storeys over basement, which extend under the south lawns.
The name Ardgillan is derived from the Irish "Árd Choill" meaning "High Wood".
Robert Taylor was a grandson of the Thomas Taylor who worked with William Petty on the mid 17th century Down Survey of Ireland. The house remained in the Taylor family until 1962 when the estate to Heinrich Potts of Westphalia. In 1982 the estate was sold to the County Council.
The ground floor rooms and kitchen are open to the Public. Upstairs there is a permanent exhibition of the Down Survey colour maps and text and the Hutton Coachbuilders drawings and text.
The Castle is managed jointly with the Skerries Development and Community Association Limited.