Red Barns House and Red Barns Hotel

Red Barns House and Red Barns Hotel are a large house, stables, and associated extensions dating to 1868-70, designed by Philip Webb for Thomas Hugh Bell. The stables were added in 1875-76, with a west extension in 1881-82, all also by Webb. A further stable extension occurred around 1900. The west extension and stables now function as a hotel.

The building is constructed of handmade, multicoloured reddish brick in English bond, with clay pantile roofs. It exhibits a Georgian vernacular revival style. The main house is two storeys and attics, with six bays. The bay on the right end projects with a cross-gabled roof, now part of the hotel. To the right again is a lower, two-storey stable block, with further extensions. The second bay of the original house features a gabled covered way with a later iron gate, leading to an inset porch with a round window. A boarded door is located on the right return of the porch. Another round window is on the first floor of the third bay; other windows are sash windows with glazing bars and segmental heads, being double-glazed at ground floor in the fifth bay.

A first-floor sill string runs along the building. The third bay was raised to three storeys, with a square-headed window and a hipped roof. The main roof at the left is hipped and has slightly-overhanging eaves. Fenestration is similar, but irregular, in the right end bay, which features a coped gable, and in the stable and extensions. Asymmetrically-placed transverse and axial stacks are present. A canted bay window with a tiled projecting gable, overhanging on the sides, is visible on the left return, alongside two hipped-roof dormers with casements.

The rear garden front shows a three-bay main house at the right, with an altered projecting drawing-room and a narrow, gabled linking bay connecting to the projecting west extension. A single-storey corridor projection links all three parts, and there are further single-storey west extensions. Fenestration is similar to the front, and there are two tripartite windows in the west block, whose roof is raised to a pyramidal shape, with a central stack and sprocketed eaves. The former stables, altered and partly concealed by later extensions, retain an original raised, pyramidal-roofed lantern.

Inside the house, original features remain, including panelling, shutters, and a plain boarded staircase. A plaque on the north side of the west wing commemorates Gertrude Lowthian Bell, a scholar, traveller, administrator, and peace maker, known as a friend of the Arabs. The building is of special architectural interest, demonstrating Philip Webb’s transition to a local vernacular style. The altered and extended former stables contribute to the group value. A late 20th-century single-storey extension is considered of no particular interest.