Putteridge Bury (Luton College Of Higher Education)

Putteridge Bury, now Luton College of Higher Education, is a country house built between 1908 and 1911 by Ernest George and Alfred Yeates for Thomas Meadows Clutterbuck. It was erected on the site of a Regency house and represents George's last country house commission. The gardens were redesigned by Gertrude Jekyll and E.L. Lutyens. The building served as a research station from 1954 to 1962 before being acquired by Luton Corporation in 1965.

The house is constructed of narrow red brick laid in English bond with moulded limestone dressings to windows and doorways. The entrance front features chequerwork of limestone and squared knapped flint set to a high plinth, with similar patterning to the lower stage of the central porch on the garden front. The service block to the west is half-timbered with jettied gables in its upper parts. All roofs are pitched steeply and covered with graduated stone slabs, topped by tall ornamental red brick chimneys.

The main house is U-shaped, rising to two storeys with attics and cellars, designed in the English Early Renaissance style. The irregular western service block is designed to appear as an older half-timbered structure. The entrance front faces north and is recessed, with unequal gabled wings: the shorter west wing contains the dining room and the larger east wing houses the ballroom. Three steps lead to a central doorway with a four-centred arched and moulded opening, fitted with a heavy battened oak door with decorative iron hinges. Above the door is a carved heraldic panel bearing a mantled shield charged with a lion rampant holding three scallops in the chief, with a seated stag as the crest and helmet. A continuous dripmould steps down over two-light mullioned windows with arched heads flanking the doorway, and continues over rows of two-light square-headed mullioned windows to each side. The first floor features trefoil-headed windows beneath a crenelated parapet. A tall projecting staircase bay occupies the angle to the left.

The symmetrical garden front faces south and is seven windows wide, with four parapeted gables separated by two large two-storey semi-octagonal bay windows featuring mullioned and transomed stone windows under crenelated parapets. A narrow two-storey central porch of equal height to the bays projects forward. Three large chimneys rise along the ridge. The porch base is expanded and features a four-centred arched doorway set within chequerwork, with a cross-window to the first floor and an armorial plaque above a large sundial.

A broad York stone terrace runs along the garden front, with red brick revetment walling and separate piers and dies supporting arched stone coping. Flights of steps at each end descend to the gardens.

The south range contains a two-storey service block faced in narrow red brick where visible from the garden. Twin half-timbered gables stand near the east end, and a large projecting chimney near the west end features three tall multi-faceted shafts with a brick pediment motif to its base. At the east end, a three-arched loggia with diagonal corner buttress projects outward, with two arches in the east end and an oriel window under a jettied gable triangle. A recessed link connects this wing to the main house, featuring a continuous leaded glazed jettied timber-framed gallery to the first floor with herringbone brick panels, and transomed continuous leaded windows to the ground floor with a heavy battened door. The loggia interior features moulded stone arches, a grey and white patterned stone floor, and a plaster compartmented ceiling with rosettes and a central figure inscribed with initials 'B.M:1.9:T.M:0.8' surrounding interlaced capital Cs. The date '1908' appears on rainwater heads on the north, east and south fronts.

The service block contains oak mullioned windows, transomed on the ground floor under segmental relieving arches, and flat-topped dormers on the west slope. The north side has three gabled projections with red brick at ground floor level but half-timbered and jettied above. A very large servants' hall window occupies the middle wing.

The interior features extensive oak panelling and panelled doors, half-glazed screens with many small panes, and a Flemish-style dog-leg staircase with moulded string, turned balusters and triangular wooden steps moulded on the raking underside. Painted heraldic glass is set in ground floor windows on the south front to the east of the central porch. The dining room is oak-panelled with a rectangular plan and an elaborate plaster barrel vault featuring strapwork and mythological scenes. Its carved chimneypiece has caryatid supports and strapwork over the mantle. The ballroom, which rises the full height of the building, features fluted pilasters set on pedestals.