St Leonards

St Leonards is a house built around 1804 for WG Coosevelt, architect unknown. It was renovated and restored between 1986 and 1989. The building is constructed of gault brick laid in Flemish bond and roofed with slate.

The house is approximately square in plan with its entrance elevation facing north-east and garden elevation facing south-east. It rises two storeys, with one wall stack in the entrance elevation to the left of centre and three internal stacks. A single-storey pool extension was added to the south-west around 1987. The building is designed in Greek Revival style.

The entrance elevation is asymmetrical. A section breaks forward near the right end, crowned with a moulded pediment, and a 20th-century Corinthian portico stands in front. The ground floor has two sashes of 6+9 lights with semicircular heads flanking the door, one plain sash of 9+9 lights to the right, and a blocked window to the left. The first floor has French windows above the door with a shallow cast-iron balcony decorated with Greek honeysuckle motifs, and two sashes of 6+6 lights. The half-glazed door has a fanlight with geometrical tracery. A stone band runs at first-floor level, and the eaves are finished with a wide projecting cornice with profiled brackets. The roof is hipped with shallow pitch.

The garden elevation is symmetrical in its central composition, with the middle section recessed and featuring a cast-iron balcony and eaves canopy spanning the recess. Either side at ground-floor level are French windows with splayed cast-iron canopies of latticed design and lead roofs; in the middle are French windows. The first floor has French windows at each side with shallow cast-iron balconies, and in the centre, French windows with a sash to each side. The wide balcony spanning the central recess has cast-iron stanchions of quatrefoil section with latticed margins and frieze. The cast-iron railing is decorated with Greek honeysuckle motifs and similar latticework above. Photographs held in Essex Record Office demonstrate that this elevation is substantially original.

The north-north-west elevation is asymmetrical, with a recessed section near the middle. The ground floor has four 20th-century sashes. The first floor displays a 2:3:2 arrangement, with 20th-century sashes at the outer positions, sashes of 9+10 lights with semicircular heads in the middle, and one additional sash set back at right. A 20th-century central door with side lights is positioned here. A stone band runs at first-floor level, and the eaves are finished with a wide projecting cornice with moulded brackets matching the entrance elevation. The Second Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1897 shows that this elevation has been substantially altered.

The interior retains many original features, restored during the 1986–1989 campaign. Six-panel pine doors and double doors are throughout. The central ground-floor room on the garden front contains, set in the south-west wall above the fireplace, a white marble sculpture of Cupid and Psyche in low relief, signed by John Deare. It has a gadrooned and scrolled frame with three urns above, painted and gilt. In the same room, a wall frieze depicts fleur-de-lys and garlands with an egg-and-dart border, painted and gilt, and a similar roundel appears in the ceiling. The south-east ground-floor room features a fireplace with white marble Ionic columns, a wall frieze of Greek honeysuckle design, foliate quadrants in the corners of the ceiling, and a roundel with garlands and radiating medallions. The entrance hall has a panelled pine dado and an egg-and-dart frieze with paterae, painted and gilt. An early 20th-century stair and early 20th-century limestone fireplace with sculpture in low relief signed by Victor H Wager are also present.