Former Wadhurst College

This country house, later used for education, was completed in 1885 to designs by Adolphus Croft, an in-house architect for Gillow and Company (later Waring and Gillow), for John Bruce. The building exemplifies the Domestic Revival style with influences drawn from Queen Anne architecture, eclectic timber framing traditions of the north-west counties, and Rhineland design. Later 20th-century extensions to the west are not of special interest.

Materials and Construction

The ground floor is constructed mainly of red brick laid in Flemish bond. The first floor is tile-hung with fishscale tiles and features a wide coved plastered eaves cornice decorated with incised stylised floral motifs. Timber-framed attic gables crown the building. The tiled roof has terracotta ridge tiles and end finials, with tall channelled brick chimneystacks. Windows comprise a mixture of sash windows with glazing bars to the upper part only, and mullioned and transomed casements.

Plan

The building is asymmetrical, with two storeys and attics. Principal rooms are located mainly to the east, with a service wing to the west. The staircase hall extends over two floors on the north side, allowing most principal rooms views south over the Weald.

Exterior

North (Entrance) Front

The principal feature is an off-centre four-storey saddleback tower with a timber-framed gable and brick round-headed blank arcading directly below, probably concealing a water tank. The second floor has casement windows with curved pediments on brackets, while the first floor is plainer. The ground floor is elaborately carved with some terracotta work, including pilasters with busts of knights and ladies, round-headed shell niches, and a projecting pediment over the main entrance supported on brackets.

To the west of the tower are two bays with an attic gabled oriel and a first-floor oriel. To the east are two ornamental gabled attics (one projecting) and a first-floor oriel window. The westernmost projecting section is simpler in character, and the ground floor has a projecting 20th-century brick extension.

East Side

The east elevation features two timber-framed attic gables, a two-storey canted bay with sandstone architraves, and a ground-floor square bay. Decorative wooden balustrading is present.

South (Garden) Front

The eastern part has four elaborate timber-framed attic gables (one curved, one canted) and two-storey bays with sandstone dressings. Adjacent is a single-storey early 20th-century brick addition (possibly a billiard room) with stone mullioned windows positioned near the cornice and a large projecting gable with a round-headed arch. Further west is a single-storey brick ballroom with a deep coved cornice and projecting canted bay with a timber-framed gable.

The detached 20th-century classrooms are not included in the listing.

Interior

Entrance and Staircase Hall

The entrance vestibule has a strapwork ceiling and tessellated floor with a leaf design. The double door leading into the staircase hall has upper round-headed panels with wrought iron grilles.

The staircase hall features a coffered ceiling, panelling with a cornice of blank arches, and a series of doorcases with curved cornices and nine-panelled doors with central carved panels. An elaborate fireplace has marble bolection moulding, engaged Romanesque columns, and an overmantel with strapwork features including panels, two blank niches, and console brackets bearing the initials JB. The western side has an elaborate cornice of swags and urns, with piers and round-headed arches opening onto a well staircase with twisted balusters and a Jacobean-type newel post. The staircase landing has stained glass with the initials JB.

Ground Floor Rooms

The eastern ground floor room has a plastered ceiling with floral patterns and dado panelling. The bay window contains armorial stained glass. The elaborate oak fireplace has pilasters, a built-in mirror, and a projecting overmantel supported on brackets of grotesques. The door has carved panels and mutule bands.

The south drawing room features an Adam-style ceiling with oval medallions containing cherubs, a cornice of urns and sphinxes, pilasters, and a six-fielded panelled door. The ceiling decoration continues into the curved bay window, and the window surrounds have round-headed arches and pilasters. However, the panelled dado and fireplaces are in a Jacobean style. The fireplace has twelve carved panels to the overmantel and built-in seats.

The adjoining dining room is in the Jacobean style with a strapwork ceiling featuring sunflower, poppyhead, and cherub motifs, a deep cornice with urns, and an elaborate fireplace with marble surround (possibly with De Morgan tiles), pilasters, nine-panelled doors with carved central panels, and fixed floral paintings above the doors. A room to the west of the entrance has a plainer oak fireplace.

Service Wing

The western service end has a stained glass panel of flying ducks in the corridor, and two rooms have Adam-style wooden fireplaces. The service staircase has thin turned balusters and turned newel posts with ball finials.

Early 20th-Century Addition

An early 20th-century room, possibly built as a billiard room, has a large skylight in the panelled ceiling and an alcove with a baronial-type fireplace with pilasters and a coat of arms. A spiral staircase lies to the west.

Ballroom

Further west, the former ballroom has a deep coved ceiling divided into three panels with large glazed skylights and a deep bracket cornice. In the centre of the north wall is a full-height alcove with a balustraded musicians' gallery with fretted overthrow supported on columns above a fireplace. Opposite on the south wall is an elaborate arched and fretted surround in front of a garden entrance with columns and balustrading. The west wall has a further fireplace with bolection moulding flanked by atlantes supporting a cornice and columned overmantel, probably originally containing a central mirror or painting but after 1930 bearing the shield and motto of Wadhurst College. The east side has a stage with a plain proscenium arch. There are two pedimented doorcases.

First Floor

On the first floor, north and south-eastern bedrooms have stained glass floral motifs to the transoms. The south-eastern bedroom has a panelled wooden surround to the fireplace with an arched brick interior, and the north-eastern bedroom has a fireplace with a full-height overmantel with pilasters. There are three painted wooden fireplaces with eared architraves and raised centre panels. Two fireplaces in smaller rooms have oval paterae.

Attic

The staircase to the attic floor is a smaller rectangular well staircase with turned balusters, a Jacobean-type newel post, and a stained glass skylight. Rooms in the attic have sloping roofs and smaller cast iron fireplaces.

History

Originally called South Park, the house was described as newly built in a local directory of 1885, which states that the architect was Adolphus Croft Esquire, an in-house architect for Gillow and Company (later Waring and Gillow).

The original owner was John Bruce, who had owned the estate since the 1870s and commissioned Croft to demolish an existing farmhouse and build a new mansion. The 1885 directory entry states: "The present residence has been built from designs by Adolphus Croft Esq. It is in the Queen Anne style, half-timbered with ornamental red brick facings and carvings. The interior is admirably appointed, and no expense whatever has been spared. The principal rooms are in the Renaissance style, except the drawing room, which is in the Adam style."

By 1890 the house was occupied by the architect's brother, the artist Arthur Croft (1828–1893 or 1902), who specialised in painting mountain scenery in Britain and the Alps and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1868.

In about 1930 South Park became a boarding school for girls called Wadhurst College. The Legat Ballet School joined it in the 1980s, and in the early 1990s Wadhurst College was amalgamated with Micklefield School from Seaford and was known as Micklefield Wadhurst. In 1997 it became a branch of Bellerbys College.