Thornhill House, including gates, gate piers and urns

Thornhill House, including gates, gate piers and urns

A private house built around 1890 by Mr Wakefield, a Kensington builder, who incorporated substantial architectural elements salvaged from Wandsworth Manor, a late 17th-century house that had been much remodelled around 1720 and was demolished in 1890 to make way for this building.

The house is constructed of stock brick with red brick dressings over a rendered basement. It has late 20th-century mansard roofs to a rebuilt attic storey and follows a rectangular plan with conservatories added to the garden elevation and end chimney stacks. The building comprises two storeys, a basement, and attics. A gated carriageway at ground floor level provides access, formerly to the builder's yard and now to buildings in separate ownership at the rear.

The front elevation features a central door reached by steps raised over an area. A porch dating from around 1700 has Corinthian columns and a dentiled cornice, with 1890s double doors set beneath a decorative 18th-century fanlight. The windows are four-pane sashes under gauged brick heads with tuck pointing and keystones. Ground floor windows have grilles and aprons; first floor windows lack aprons except over the porch. There are bands at upper, middle, and sill levels and between floors. A high, partly rebuilt parapet conceals the attic floor, except where a roundel admits light to a window set behind. Raised brick panels flank either side. A decorative tile panel sits over the carriage arch, which features tuck pointing and a keystone, with a second gauged head and keystone in the band above.

The garden front has a deep staircase sash window on the first floor with smaller casements either side. A blocked feature appears over the carriage arch. An 1890s conservatory on the first floor has a 20th-century roof.

The interior contains several rooms of exceptional quality. The entrance hall features fine raised and fielded panelling with box cornices and sills, an eared timber fireplace surround with pedimented overmantel and tiled grate, and doors leading to a rear room with elegant gesso mouldings. To the side, the ceiling is lower and incorporates an early 18th-century painting said to depict Anne, Princess of Denmark, being informed of her accession to the throne. The rear ground floor conservatory contains marble dado panelling and flooring believed to come from the Tivoli Theatre, Strand, which was rebuilt in the 1920s, along with delicate stained glass panels and wall sconces. Originally an open winter garden, this room was roofed in the late 20th century.

The first-floor staircase, reached through a round-arched opening possibly taken from the entrance hall screen of the original house, is a magnificent example of decorative stairwork dating from around 1720. It features an open string with three balusters carved with barleysugar twists and knops per tread, decorative tread ends, and a ramped handrail ending in a twist of columns at the bottom. The treads were cut down or replaced to fit the available space. The staircase displays paintings in the same manner as that in the hall—depicting cupids, horses, a lion, and fawns celebrating a magisterial female figure set in a roundel, and a smaller portrait roundel of a lady in late 17th-century dress. Giant pilasters frame the window, and additional carved elements frame smaller paintings on the lower stair. The first floor front room contains reused moulded panelling forming cupboards, an early 19th-century fireplace, and 1930s wall sconces.

The basement stairs are late 19th-century, though 17th-century panelling is present alongside. The front basement room has raised and fielded panelling with dado rail and box cornice, fireplace and overmantel with 1930s sconces. The rear basement contains old fragments, including former window shutters forming cupboard doors either side of a 17th-century fireplace with an overmantel formed from many fragments, one dated 1673, and a circa 1800 grate. In total, there are two wholly panelled rooms and two partly panelled rooms of special interest, plus the staircase and upper conservatory. The remaining rooms, including the roof extension and lower conservatory, are entirely late 20th or early 21st-century in design and are not of special interest.

To the front stand four 18th-century rusticated stone gatepiers with capitals and acorn finials; the central two carry cast-iron gates and an overthrow of the 1890s. Behind these are two further rendered piers with urns giving on to the steps. The left pier serves the carriageway, which is separated from the house entrance by cast-iron ornamental railings.

Historical Context

According to the Victoria County History, Wandsworth Manor House was built on the summit of East Hill, Wandsworth, probably around 1670 for Peter Paggen, a Low Country refugee, who occupied the house until his death in 1720 and is buried in nearby Mount Nod Cemetery. A significant number of Huguenot refugees settled in Wandsworth at this period. Although the site was not one of Wandsworth's four medieval manors, the house's grandeur earned it the manor designation. The house was long attributed to Christopher Wren, an attribution questioned in 1889 when visited by the Surrey Archaeological Society. The paintings have been traditionally attributed to James Thornhill, from whom the present house takes its name. The painting in the hall bears the initials P K P for Peter and his wife Katherine.

Mr Wakefield was advised to move to Putney for his health at the time Wandsworth Manor was being demolished. He reinstalled large quantities of fine panelling, the sumptuous staircase, and fine wallpaintings to create a remarkable assemblage of exceptional quality enhanced by its documented common provenance. The house gains additional interest from sconces and other decoration added by Norris Wakefield, Mr Wakefield's grandson, who worked with Edward James at Monkton in the 1930s.