The Leys

The Leys is a small country house in Elstree and Borehamwood, now used as a residential home. It was built in 1901 with an additional wing added in 1923, both designed by the renowned architect George Walton (1867-1933) for JBB Wellington, a photographer and manufacturer of photographic paper.

The main house is constructed of orange-red brick on the ground floor with a pebbledashed upper storey set on a moulded stone band. The roof is steeply pitched with plain tiles (re-tiled in the 1980s), lead hip flashings, and deep boarded eaves. Cast iron rainwater hoppers are decorated with heart motifs and inscriptions dated 1901. The building is two storeys with an attic, arranged in a U-plan and designed in the Glasgow School and Arts and Crafts style.

The front elevation features a hipped roof with symmetrical metal casements containing leaded lights arranged in a 2:3:2 pattern, grouped around a central semi-circular bay that breaks through the main eaves and has a flat roof. The bay is timber-framed with herringbone panels of one-inch brick and bands of leaded lights. A projecting porch in similar brick has a segmental leaded roof and double plank doors, each bearing half of a heart-shaped light. Two raking dormers with three-light windows that form narrow horizontal slits punctuate the roof. The rear elevation has a central recess with a mansard roof and Venetian hall window, flanked by gabled wings with stone copings, scrolled kneelers, and external brick chimneys. A quadrant projection containing a spiral servants' stair stands in the left angle, while a late 20th-century rendered link occupies the right angle. Minor late 20th-century alterations include a boiler flue and fire escape. A small raised terrace between the rear wings sits above a coal-hole and boiler room.

The interior is arranged around three sides of a central full-height hall and billiard room with a staircase and first-floor gallery. The staircase retains elements of Walton's original design with slender octagonal posts and a matchstick grid, though the original full screen has been reduced to a balustrade with an altered handrail and finials. The gallery features matching posts and balustrade, though these were installed in the 1980s to replace the original wrought iron. Above the stair is a high semi-circular balcony with tapering splat balusters pierced with roundels. A stone fireplace with carved scrolls, different from its documented 1903 appearance, occupies the hall, which also contains a stained glass dove in a Venetian window, vertical panels of dark-stained wood, matching door and window surrounds with flat cornices, and scrolled name plaques relocated from the gates.

The ground-floor reception rooms comprise a drawing room and entrance hall, both with similar panelling painted and surmounted by a wooden cornice or plate shelf and a deep plain frieze. These rooms are connected by a folding panelled partition. The drawing room includes a short frieze painted in 1923 with ribbon and tulip motifs, and an inglenook recess with a corner post, side screen, and mosaic panels for a former fireplace. The entrance hall has a groin vault, arches opening to the central hall, glazed inner doors, and an altered fireplace surround. The dining room retains an inglenook recess with a panelled ceiling and matching cornice and plate shelf, but has been subdivided and lost its fireplace fittings. The morning room, positioned to the rear of the drawing room, has moulded panels and an inglenook and alcove with side screens featuring drop motifs, an armrest, and abstract curved openings. A fireplace with a pargetted surround and tiled panels is present. Service rooms to the rear of the dining room retain fragments of glazed tiling from the former kitchen but were altered in 1923 to provide access to the new wing. The first floor has been re-partitioned, though some 1901 door architraves and small plain panels in the former master bedroom survive. The attic floor has matchboard walls to the servants' rooms and a screen to the tank room with a stained glass heart motif in its door.

The 1923 wing was added to the north-east corner and subsequently altered in 1965 and the 1980s. It is constructed of red brick with a hipped tile roof and comprises two storeys across five bays, retaining some original metal casements with leaded lights. The front originally had a central three-bay arcaded loggia, which still survives structurally but is now enclosed and partially incorporated into a single-storey dining room extension built in 1965. The former balcony above the loggia has also been enclosed. The ground-floor kitchen retains some 1920s matt tiling, including two piers tiled in black with offset tiled caps. The first-floor billiard room is now partitioned with an inserted ceiling, but retains dark-stained vertical panelling on the rear walls and end bays.

Wellington owned the house until 1939, after which Walton's original furniture and fittings were dispersed. Since 1947, the building has been used as a residential home by Middlesex County Council and the London Borough of Barnet.