Former Squash Court at Rivercourt House

MATERIALS: brown brick and in-situ cast concrete.

PLAN: a two-storey rectangular building, approximately 9m x 6m on plan, with garage, garden room, store-room and open loggia below, and squash court above accessed via an external staircase.

EXTERIOR: the tall upper storey contains the squash court and is a windowless brick box, its starkness relieved by the serpentine profile of the walls to south, east and west, and by a subtle diaper pattern of black bricks. On the long south (garden) front is a loggia with four sharply-fluted concrete columns between square brick end piers; the curving lintel above has bas-reliefs depicting waves, vines, ears of wheat, a ship, a horse and a cockerel by the sculptor Gertrude Hermes. (The large concrete flower boxes that filled the gaps between the columns have been removed.) The loggia ceiling has a stepped profile, and a niche on its inner wall contains a bronze snail sculpture by Hermes which originally served as a fountain. Metal-framed windows and doors open into the garden room and garage; the latter has been slightly enlarged and its main doors renewed. To the west is an external spiral stair with concrete treads of curving profile set into a cylindrical brick newel and supporting a decorative wrought-iron handrail. The upper flight rises to the viewing gallery, which is contained in a cantilevered segmental projection high up on the west wall. A large bronze weather-vane in the form of a seahorse, again sculpted by Hermes, crowns the newel.

INTERIORS: the squash court interior is plain and functional, with hard plaster walls, a sprung wood floor, a timber viewing gallery and a large skylight. (Since conversion to a drama studio the walls have been painted black and the floor covered over.) The garden room no longer has its seating and panelling, but retains its unusual coved ceiling.