The Garden House

A large gardener’s house, dating from circa 1860, was constructed for Battlesden House. The house was designed as part of the estate, initially under the direction of G.H. Stokes, with advice from Sir Joseph Paxton, and was demolished in the 1880s. It is built of brick with exposed timber framing, and has old tile hipped and gabled roofs. The windows are primarily wooden casements and sashes. Brick chimneys are corbelled and have dentilled caps. The architectural style is picturesque free gothic.

The front facade features a main range with steeply hipped ends and tall brick end chimneystacks with dentilled and corbelled caps. A central bay is advanced beneath a steep gable with fretted bargeboards. This gable contains a casement with diamond mullions positioned above a similar window, and is offset by a main entrance door with two glazed panes. To the right is a five-light canted bay window with diamond mullions, and a casement dormer with diamond mullions and fretted bargeboards. A three-light diamond mullion casement occupies the ground floor to the left, with a matching dormer above. To the far left, an advanced range has a half-hipped gable with fretted bargeboards, and brickwork with timbering at the top. A sleeping porch, in a Swiss vernacular style with wooden posts and a solid balustrade punctuated by cross and egg motifs, is located here. An external stair, also with a similar balustrade, leads to a recessed secondary entrance. The rear elevation is rendered and has a central advanced gable with a diamond mullion casement above a four-over-eight panel sash window. Multi-pane sash windows are present in a single-storey outshut at the rear, and a diamond mullion casement is in the rear of the sleeping porch bay.

The interior was not inspected.

Attached to the right side is a circa 200-meter stretch of brick former kitchen garden wall with curved blue brick copings. A single-storey brick shed is attached to the rear of this wall. To the right and extending in front of the cottage is a shorter stretch of wall broken by brick piers capped with stone ball finials.

The property was likely built as a Head Gardener's house and was part of a former kitchen garden. It has group value with the Grade I listed St. Peter and All Saints Church, located immediately behind the garden wall, and with the two Battlesden Lodges, built circa 1860 by G.H. Stokes. The house is situated within the Grade II Registered Battlesden Park.