Winscombe House and Winscombe Tower

Winscombe House and Winscombe Tower, Crowborough

A detached house, now subdivided into three properties: Highfield (formerly Winscombe House), Winscombe Tower, and Fernlea Cottage.

Highfield was built circa 1899 by architect M H Baillie Scott in Vernacular Revival style. Local tradition records that it was built for a Judge Swift. The house is constructed with red brick to the ground floor and painted roughcast to the first floor, with a tiled roof and roughcast chimneystacks including a diagonally set front stack and an external chimney to the south west. The asymmetrical entrance front to the north east features a large projecting gable originally supported on four wooden Tuscan columns, though the porch was glazed in during the later 20th century. Behind this is the original front door with four ribs and moulded architrave. The south east elevation has casement windows with two oriels, replaced in the later 20th century but retaining original divisions. The rear elevation has a left side gable and three casement windows, with a wooden casement windows visible behind a later conservatory where an earlier tented canopy survives. A roughcast gable faces south west.

The interior is notable for its original fittings. The front entrance hall contains a diagonally set fireplace with overmantel incorporating display shelves, copper surround and hood, together with wooden dado panelling and a ceiling with narrow moulded ribs. A well staircase in the corner features solid balustrading decorated with cut-out patterns of three circles. The lounge to the south west has a large curved arch over the fireplace with shelf and two small windows, a stone fireplace below, ribbed ceiling and cambered panels to the dado. The central room, originally the hall, retains original French windows with leaded lights, two sidelights and two five-light windows with leaded lights. A brick arched fireplace with pilasters, moulded wooden panelling to the overmantel, a built-in wooden settle with panelling and low seat, dado panelling and ribbed ceiling are preserved. The western room, originally a dining room as shown in The Architectural Review in 1900, features a brick fireplace with panelled overmantel, elaborate square panelling to plate shelf level with diagonal joints, a cupboard, dado rail and a central spine beam supported on stone corbels with beaded floor joists. An 1900 illustration suggests there may originally have been stencilled decoration to the plate shelf.

The first floor contains a corridor with painted panelling, plate shelf and round-headed arched opening with original doors. One bedroom retains an original fireplace with green tiles and three tiled panels probably of Persian tiles, slender pilasters with shallow capitals and a plate shelf. Another bedroom has a barrel-vaulted ceiling and similar fireplace with original tilework painted over except for three Persian tiled panels.

Winscombe Tower was added circa 1902, also by Baillie Scott, as a music room extension to the north west. The front gable of Highfield was probably remodelled at this time. Winscombe Tower is mainly roughcast with some brickwork to the ground floor of the north west entrance front, with a tiled roof and large external chimney stack. Its principal feature is a two storey corner tower with flat roof and splayed corner bay containing stone mullioned windows. A brick ground floor extension with gabled doorcase to the entrance front was probably added circa 1955 when the property was subdivided, with a slightly later flat-roofed extension to the left. The north east elevation retains tripartite casements with leaded lights. The garden front to the south west is two storeys with casement windows to the upper floor, but the ground floor has a mid-20th century flat-roofed extension.

Originally Winscombe Tower contained one large music room, but this was partitioned into smaller rooms after 1955. The large fireplace with brick chimney and two originally external casement windows with leaded lights survive, together with tapering wooden piers to ceiling height, ribbed wooden ceiling and panelling above plate shelf level. The tower contains a half-winder staircase with flat balustrading and a tapering square newel post moulded to the top.

Service accommodation was added to the north east probably between the wars, now a separate property called Fernlea Cottage. This was added in similar style and materials but is not known to be by Baillie Scott. Some later 20th century extensions and replaced windows have been made to the complex.

According to Kornwolf's "M H Baillie Scott and the Arts and Crafts Movement", construction dated between 1899 and 1902 with the music room added by Baillie Scott about 1902. A drawing of the entrance front of the "House at Crowborough" appears in this book with plans from Academy Architecture of 1900. As originally built, the house had four bedrooms with a large drawing room to the left, central hall, dining room to the right and service wing including a projecting wing. The Architectural Review of May 1900 printed a watercolour of Baillie Scott's house at Crowborough exhibited at the Royal Academy. Ordnance Survey maps show Winscombe House built first, with Winscombe Tower appearing by the 1904 map, confirming it as the 1902 Baillie Scott music room. In 1955 the building was divided into three properties.