Princess Helena College, Temple Dinsley, With Terraces, Steps, Walls, Railings, Gates, Pergolas, And Garden Buildings

Princess Helena College, Temple Dinsley is a manor house now serving as a girls' school, accompanied by extensive formal gardens with terraces, steps, walls, railings, gates, pergolas, and garden buildings. The property represents a remarkable collaboration between architect Edwin Lutyens and garden designer Gertrude Jekyll in the early 20th century, transforming an early Georgian house into an Edwardian country house and garden of exceptional quality.

The Early 18th-Century House

The core of the building dates to 1714, as recorded on rainwater heads at each end of the south front. It was built for Benedict Ithell of Chelsea, Deputy Treasurer to Chelsea Hospital, who purchased the manor in 1712. This original house is a substantial double-pile structure with cellars, two main storeys, and attics. Built of red brick laid in Flemish bond with lighter red brick dressings and some stone details, it has steep-pitched roofs covered in old red tiles, arranged as two parallel half-hipped roofs.

The south front presents a symmetrical seven-window composition. Corner pilasters constructed in header-bond brickwork rise to stone caps topped with urns above parapet level. Similar pilasters flank the central entrance bay. Three flat-topped dormers break the roofline. The windows are flush-box sashes with six-over-six panes—the sashes renewed by Lutyens to replace Victorian two-over-two examples—set beneath segmental heads within deep segmental gauged arches of light red brick. These arches feature stepped Portland stone keystones, with the central keystone distinctively fluted and taller than the others. Near each end of the façade, a rainwater head bears an heraldic badge in the form of a rising bird with the date '1714'. The central entrance has a stone moulded doorcase with an entablature and segmental pediment, renewed by Lutyens to match the former pattern (the original similar doorcase survives on the north front). An old eight-panelled door hangs in the opening.

The north front echoes the south, with urns on the corner pilasters and pilasters flanking an eight-panel central door beneath a segmental pedimented doorcase. Seven upper windows match those on the south. To the right of centre, two very deep stair windows light the principal staircase. To the left of the door, a large mid-18th-century canted bay window projects, built of red brick with flat gauged arches over sash windows and reserved (plain) canted sides.

Lutyens's Extensions of 1908–1909 and 1911

Edwin Lutyens undertook major alterations and extensions for H.G. Fenwick in 1908–9, with '1909' appearing on some rainwater heads. He added symmetrical two-storey wings to east and west of the original house, each connected by recessed two-storey links with attics. These links feature prominent Dutch gables to north and south—a deliberate reference to similar gables on the cross-wings of a 17th-century brick house that formerly stood on the site, known from Drapentier's engraving of around 1700.

Each link contains a large semi-circular window with keystone and triple-sash above two tall segmental-headed sash windows. The ground floor has three windows on the east link but only two on the west. The wings are built of red brick in English bond, their parapet heights aligned with the main house. Each wing has corner pilasters with stone caps and urns on the north and south fronts, with two storeys and two windows wide. The Lutyens hipped roofs are steeply pitched with chamfered angles.

In 1935, architect Felix J. Lander adapted the property for Princess Helena College by jacking up the roofs of the cross-wings by four feet to create headroom for dormitories. The new exposed elevations were tile-hung and dormers inserted over the windows below.

Taking advantage of the site's steep eastward slope, Lutyens built a kitchen wing at lower level with five flat-topped sash dormer windows. In 1911 he added a nursery extension east of this, featuring a stone-arcaded ground floor with Tuscan stone columns and a three-bay pilastered south elevation beneath a very steep tile roof. This extension connects to a tall two-storey 18th-century former stable block, which Lutyens incorporated as a racquets court and which has subsequently been altered to three-storey domestic accommodation.

The west elevation of the west wing extends eleven windows in length and introduces a moulded stone cornice at eaves level. The parapet features recesses over the windows, and pilasters with stone bases and caps mark where two-window sections break forward one bay in from each corner. In the end bay of the first floor, a recess with segmental base and head replaces what would otherwise be a window. A stone frontispiece forms the centrepiece, with a wrought-iron balcony to pilastered segmental-headed French doors above a glazed door with bolection-moulded stone surround and moulded hood. Narrow windows flank the door and repeat above. The windows are flush-box sashes with six-over-six panes, segmental heads, and segmental arches with fluted keystones—plain on the first floor, stepped on the ground floor.

A wall extending westward from this elevation links to twin garden pavilions connected by a Tuscan loggia facing south. The wooden entablature features guttae to the corona to emphasise the two rusticated pilasters of each hip-roofed single-storey garden house. Two pairs of Portland stone Tuscan columns stand with an engaged square stone pier at the nearer corner of each pavilion.

The Jekyll Gardens

Gertrude Jekyll designed the gardens between 1909 and 1912, creating an exceptional series of formal terraced gardens that complement Lutyens's architecture. A rose garden lies on the west front, with garden walls and revetment walls incorporating flights of steps extending westward, defining the terraced levels and an upper pool southwest of the west wing. One flight of steps and landings—alternately convex and concave on plan—descends northward into a hedged garden.

An upper terrace links the wings on the north front, with a pierced balustrade of brick rusticated dies and curved tile infill. Steps descend right and left to a second terrace level, where a circular stone pool with a lead statue is half-recessed in a hemicycle tiled vault, central beneath the upper terrace. Revetted terraces run northward at a higher level from the upper terrace to a grand terrace along the north front.

This grand terrace features three flights of steps descending to a sunken garden. The middle flight sits on the axis of the old house, while the others align with the axes of the wings. These outer flights have divided lower flights and superimposed pergolas of oak cambered beams on circular and square specially made brick piers. The east pergola continues across the east side of the sunken garden and over steps in the revetted terrace on the north side, with another flight of steps further west on the axis of the old house.

The north terrace extends eastward and terminates in a gazebo corbelled out from its battered southeast corner. This formal square single-storey building has a pyramid roof and an entrance via a three-panel fielded door on the west flanked by narrow windows. Flush-box sash windows with six-over-six panes are positioned centrally on the south and east sides. Three stone steps lead to the door. The interior is entirely panelled with fielded panelling executed in plaster. The floor is laid in chequered brick and tile.

York stone paves the terraces, steps, and landings throughout the garden staircases and pergolas.

Forecourt and Ironwork

The brick-walled forecourt to the 18th-century house survives with its moulded brick capping to side-walls and corner piers. Outswept wrought-iron railings top a dwarf wall, with scrolled standards at intervals and double gates with scrolled standards, overthrow, and cresting featuring repoussé ornament. Lutyens linked the side walls to the ends of his two new wings with dwarf walls, square piers with moulded stone caps, and railings interrupted by wrought-iron gates with scrolled standards on dwarf walls and elaborate scrolled overthrows with repoussé ornament matching the 18th-century originals.

Set in the kitchen court wall is a sandstone plaque dated 1881, brought from the former premises of Princess Helena College in Ealing.

Interior of the 18th-Century House

The older house retains pine-panelled interiors. The principal staircase has a wide cut string with carved tread ends and three balusters to each step—one fluted and two barley-sugar twisted. A heavy stock-lock secures the front door. Case-locks operate six-panel fielded doors throughout.

Lutyens Interiors in the West Wing

The west wing contains Lutyens-designed interiors centred on an octagonal Garden Hall. At the northeast and southeast corners stand 18th-century corner cupboards (the southeast is a copy), each with hemicycle tops, shaped shelves, and painted coves and keystones. Former birdcages occupy the outer angles. The Smoking Room to the north features fluted pilasters and a dentilled entablature with panelling. The Drawing Room to the south is fully panelled with a red marble bolection-moulded fireplace and china cupboards set between the windows.

Historical Context

The 1714 house replaced an earlier residence of the Sadleir family, who owned the manor from the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Before this, the manor belonged to the Knights Templar during the 13th and 14th centuries, then to the Knights Hospitaller, with a small religious community present. The estate's connection to the Knights Templar gives it its name, Temple Dinsley.

The contractors for Lutyens's work in 1908–9 were Norman and Burt of Burgess Hill, Sussex. Subsequent alterations and extensions have been made for the college since the 1935 adaptations.