1, Campden Hill

Private house, 1914-15, designed by Edward Prioleu Warren, FRIBA (1856-1937) for Colonel Edmund and Julia Hills. Built in small red and brown bricks from Thomas Lawrence and Sons' yard at Bracknell, laid in English Bond, with Green Westmoreland slate roofs and wood framed casements with leaded lights. An Edwardian Arts and Crafts interpretation of a late 17th-century country house, set in an urban setting.

The plan comprises distinct family and service wings, with entrances to both from Campden Hill and the family rooms at ground, first and attic floors oriented towards the south garden front.

The south garden elevation is composed of advanced bays to each end with quoins, flanking the central range and unified by a continuous plat band and modillion eaves cornice. The advanced bays sit under hipped roofs with segmental headed dormers, while two-storey canted bays with windows to each face have tall brick end chimneys. The central wing contains five window bays with a pair of two-storey canted bays flanking a narrow entrance glazed door beneath a traceried overlight. The keyblock is dated 1915. A large central dormer with pediment and Ionic pilasters is flanked by two smaller dormers. A York flag stone garden terrace with brick piers and stone urns flanks the entrance and is linked by iron railings. At the centre, steps descend to a basement access under a brick rounded arch. The terrace extends further at a lower level with a low brick wall and piers with stone balls flanking three semi-circular steps.

The north elevation to Campden Hill is asymmetrical, its main feature being a colonnaded loggia reached by a frontispiece with an arched opening under a 1915 datestone. The loggia has paired wooden columns and leads to an entrance vestibule framed by a rounded arch with pilasters and keyblock. The tall stair window is also notable on this side. The servants wing to the west is built in similar brick with an entrance under a flat roof canopy and leaded overlight.

The interior of the ground floor is richly decorated with six-panel doors in doorcases with cornices and pulvinated friezes, modillion cornices, and plaster ceilings. The entrance hall spans two bays with a groin vaulted ceiling and contains a plaque by Edmond and Juliet Grove-Hills dated 1915 inscribed with a poem. The staircase hall has walls panelled with wood mouldings and features a dog-leg oak staircase in late 17th-century style with open-string carved balusters and newels. A fireplace with marble bolection moulding is set within. The drawing room along the south side has a plaster ceiling and original fireplace with bolection moulding, marble inset, metallic tiles and deep cornice mantle, with a central door opening to the terrace. The dining room has a plasterwork ceiling incorporating the initials of the patrons. Its fireplace has original marble bolection moulding with an altered frame over the mantle.

The first floor follows a plainer decorative scheme. Bedroom fireplaces have flat profile marble surrounds and shelves on consoles or pulvinated friezes. Corridors feature arched openings at each end with keyblock and pilasters and an oculus. The attic and servant bedrooms have tile surrounds and cast iron registers, with a bell system in the attic.

The service range, primarily at ground floor level, has a chequerboard tiled floor and two oculi. Fittings include built-in wooden and glass cupboards in the china and linen rooms, which also have a round leaded interior window, slate-shelved pantries, a dumb-waiter, a secondary staircase with stick balusters and square plan newels with balls, a wide wooden kitchen fireplace under a raised lantern, a safe, a bell system, and leaded overlights to doors.

Construction began in 1914 and was completed in 1915, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. The site had previously formed part of the Phillimore Estate, specifically the grounds of Blundell House (originally Bute House), which was demolished around 1913. This enabled the construction of four new large Edwardian houses, of which No. 1 Campden Hill is one. Colonel Edmund Hills was president of the Royal Astronomical Society at the time of the house's construction.