Michaelstow Hall

Michaelstow Hall is a house, now used as a special school, built in 1903 in the Neo-Georgian style. It is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with limestone dressings, roofed with slate and lead.

The building has a complex plan comprising a main range facing south-east, a longer parallel range to the rear, a billiard room in a left front corner projecting forwards, and a service range to the right. The main part of the house contains 6 internal stacks. Two-storey flat-roofed extensions were added to the right and rear right around 1920, and a single-storey flat-roofed extension was added to the rear of the main block around 1960. A covered corridor runs from the left rear corner, connecting with a smaller house to the north-west.

The main building is of 2 storeys with attics; the billiard room is single-storey; parts of the service range are single-storey. The south-east entrance elevation features a central section set back behind a recessed porch with a balcony. The window arrangement is 2:3:2. The outer windows are 24-light sashes on the ground floor and 16-light sashes on the first floor. The 2 inner ground-floor windows are 24-light sashes, while the 3 inner first-floor windows are French windows opening onto the balcony. All windows have near-flat arches of rubbed brick; the outer ground-floor windows have rubbed brick aprons. The central first-floor window has a canopy or blind-box on scrolled brackets. In the attic storey, 5 twelve-light sashes sit in dormers with moulded heads, alternately segmental and pedimental. All sashes have ovolo-moulded glazing bars.

The central entrance comprises double half-glazed doors with sidelights and an overlight. A moulded brick plinth runs along the base. Four Ionic columns and two Ionic pilasters support the balcony, which forms the entablature with balustrade. A lightly moulded stone band appears at first-floor level on side blocks. A moulded cornice with egg-and-dart ornament sits on plain brackets. Quoins of alternate blocks of stone and rubbed brick finish the corners. Hipped roofs cover the building.

The billiard room features a Venetian window with heads and piers of rubbed brick and a projecting triple keystone. It has similar quoins and cornice to the gable, and a rectangular lantern with hipped glass roof on pilasters with a moulded cornice. Moulded cast-iron gutters and moulded cornices on the stacks complete the external details.

A water tank added to the main roof displaced an original bell-turret, which now stands on brick piers one metre north-east of the main block. The bell-turret has 4 wooden piers, a zinc domed roof, and a wooden finial, and contains a hung bell marked 'J. Warner and Sons Ltd., 1903'.

The north-west (garden) elevation is of similar style and detail to the south-east elevation, with a central section set back. The central first-floor feature is a Venetian window with 2 round lights above and a shallow balcony with balustrade, beneath which sits a small 6-light sash with a projecting triple keystone. In the left block is a doorway now enclosed by a covered corridor to the single-storey extension. Windows in this area are tripartite sashes, with bullseye glass on the ground floor. The single-storey extension adversely affects the appearance of the garden elevation.

Most interior features and finishes are original. The house was built for a Mr. Garland by an architect whose name is unknown. It was sold to Essex County Council in 1919 for use as a special school. The building is noted as being in the comfortably Neo-Georgian style of the day, similar to houses by Ernest Newton.