Building No. 119 (Westcliffe House and attached terrace walls)

Westcliffe House is a large detached villa dating to 1904, situated within HMS Daedalus in Gosport. Built in Flemish bond red brickwork with limestone dressings, some tile-hanging, and various built-in terracotta panels, the house features decorative half-timbering to three gables and plain tile roofs. The date 1904 is marked on the west-facing stack.

The house comprises two storeys with an attic and basement. It has a compact plan with a service wing projecting to the rear on the right side. The principal entrance faces east, opposite the later Officers' Mess, and a small covered verandah to the south leads to the terrace and steps. A broad entrance hall runs through the full depth of the house to a generous open-well staircase at the rear, flanked by the principal reception rooms.

The eastern entrance front features a broad panelled hardwood door with overlight set in a stone surround with three-quarter Ionic columns beneath a bold shell hood above an entablature, approached by a short flight of steps. Above the door is a paired sash with stone mullion and a small two-light gabled dormer. To the right is a paired sash with brick mullion, and at ground floor a canted bay with paired mullion to central stone mullion, brick piers with stone caps and bases, returning in single sashes; this is topped by a stone entablature with central pediment and a brick balustrade with swept stone copings supporting a small balcony. An external eaves stack, carried on a corbel at first-floor height with a terracotta panel, is tied back to the main roof slope with gabled weathering.

The south front presents twin gables with canted bays detailed similarly to the east side but conjoined by a continuous stone entablature with three slender stone Ionic columns on small pedestals fronting the verandah. Above the small balustraded balconies are three tall sashes on the left and a paired sash with stone mullion on the right; at the centre is a deep pair of casements to a stone mullion. The rear wall to the verandah has one sash and a blocked former doorway.

The west front displays a complex wide eaves stack with terracotta panel and a small sash at ground floor to the left. A wide tile-hung gable bears a terracotta panel dated 1904 above a large three-light sash and a shallow square bay in four lights with slender stone mullions and a small central segmental pediment, all beneath a sweep of tile-hanging. This bay, like the others, includes Art Nouveau coloured glazing at the top of the lights. The ground falls away on this side, with deep plinth to brick offsets.

The interior is richly detailed with original deep moulded skirtings, dado rail, picture rail, and moulded cornices, with brass fittings to six-panelled doors in moulded architraves and complex heads. The entrance hall features a mosaic floor, Art Nouveau glass to a screen, and is dominated by a large fireplace with over-mantel mirror and Ionic columns to a shell niche. The staircase has alternative carved and turned balusters and a panelled dado; the service stair is of simpler design. The house contains an electric range of fireplace styles from Adam to Jacobean, with cast iron grates from classical to Art Nouveau.

This characteristically exuberant Edwardian design was executed in rich materials with varied decorative external detail in stonework and terracotta, whilst the interior features especially luxuriant trim. The house originally stood in generous grounds before being requisitioned in 1917 when the site was developed for military use. It gains added architectural interest through its close proximity to the much larger replacement Officers' Mess of 1933.

HMS Daedalus survives as the most complete example of a seaplane base in Britain, distinguished by its diversity of technical and evolved domestic architecture. The site was established in 1917 as a temporary naval seaplane training school, initially developed as a satellite to the Royal Naval Air Service base at Calshot. The RAF took over administration in 1918, and training continued throughout the 1920s for the newly-formed Fleet Air Arm. The seaplane hangars, amongst the earliest structures erected on site, were located to the south and east of a generous concrete apron. Westcliffe House represents a notable example of how early seaplane bases requisitioned earlier residential properties for use as officers' messes. The building is accompanied by attached terrace walls.