The Red House

The Red House is a house that underwent remodelling in 1901 by Charles E. Bateman, originally a late 18th century to early 19th century farmhouse, built for Arthur Elsmere Harris of Harris and Sheldon, shopfitters. It is constructed of red brick with some sandstone dressings and features a clay plain tile roof with gabled ends. The house has a T-shaped plan, with a porch and a wing added to the north front and a service wing on the west side, all designed in the Domestic Revival style.

The exterior is two storeys high, with an asymmetrical north front that includes a gabled two-storey porch at the centre. This porch has a sandstone ashlar ground floor, a moulded Tudor arch doorway with a carved coat of arms above, flanked by three-light windows and a four-light stone mullion window above. To the right, there is a gabled wing and a single-storey service wing at the extreme right. The south garden front has three bays on the left and one bay on the right, featuring a gable-ended wing with a garden door beside a projecting stack. The windows include two, three, and five-light casements with small panes; the ground floor left five-light window has leaded panes, while two windows above have been replaced with 20th-century casements. Cambered brick arches are present, and there is a gabled brick porch to the left of centre with an arched doorway and a 20th-century glazed door. A conservatory from the early 20th century is located on the left corner.

The interior was fundamentally remodelled in 1901. The porch leads to a large central hall with exposed ceiling beams and joists, wall framing with large plaster panels, and integral doorframes with cambered arches, cornices, and panelled and glazed doors. There is a simple chimneypiece with panelled pilasters and a panelled overmantel. A notable feature in the hall is a large framed cartoon of St Augustine telling King Ethelbert of Kent about Jesus Christ, created by Henry Payne. A wide oak staircase with pierced balusters rises from the hall, and some of the ceiling beams are reused from the earlier farmhouse.