Whittington Lodge, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home

Former Cattery built c1907; two-storey rendered Italianate style with Arts and Crafts detailing.

ARCHITECT: Clough Williams-Ellis.

MATERIALS: lime washed rendered brickwork with painted tile dressings, and a terracotta pantile roof.

PLAN: trapezoidal-plan, two-storey structure.

EXTERIOR: Whittington Lodge is a delightfully whimsical building, typical of the architect Clough Williams-Ellis. It is located centrally within a crescent-shaped courtyard formed by the former London Chatham and Dover Railway (High Level) to the west and the two-storey glazed elevation of the main Battersea Dogs and Cats Home buildings to the south and east.

The main (south) elevation is symmetrical in design with central doorways to each floor, flanked by windows. The first-floor is approached by a rebuilt external timber stairway supported by timber posts with a half-landing and a principal landing. The stairs have plain splat balusters and square-section newel posts with ball finials. The timber casement windows are two-leaved, each of six panes, have depressed segmental arches with raised tile impost blocks and keystones, and those at first-floor have slatted timber shutters. The head of the right-hand ground floor window is laid in horizontal tiles. The doorway to the first-floor is recessed, together with a round-headed fanlight, beneath a rendered brick arch with a pronounced keystone. The ground-floor door, which is situated under the principal landing of the external stairway, is square-headed and approached by two steps down from the courtyard and has a glazed upper panel. Both doors are framed with vertical boards.

The west elevation has a pair of single recessed rectangular pivot-hung six-pane timber casement windows to the ground-floor. At first floor is a triple flush timber casement window, each light of twelve panes, beneath a depressed arch with projecting tile impost blocks and keystone. The rear north elevation has a first-floor oculus with projecting rendered and painted keystones. The east elevation is blind.

The flared hipped pantile roof has an octagonal glazed cupola beneath a lead covered dome finished with a feline weather vane. The roof projects beyond the wall surfaces and has a deep timber lined soffit raised on a cornice with cast-iron rainwater goods, supported by long, scrolled wrought iron brackets.

INTERIOR: the interior to both floors is occupied by trapezoidal-plan rooms with plain rendered walls. The first floor now has a suspended ceiling but in addition to the daylight received from the windows, it may have been naturally lit from above by the lantern of the cupola.

Two C20 air conditioning units located against the south wall beneath the half-landing of the stairway are not of special interest.