Shepewood House and Associated Garden Structures, Lord Wandsworth College

Shepewood House and Associated Garden Structures, Lord Wandsworth College

Shepewood House is a schoolmaster's house built in 1914-1915 to the design of architect Reginald Blomfield. It is constructed in red brick with stone dressings, render, and clay roof tiles.

The house is arranged over two storeys with an attic level and follows a broadly rectangular plan. The ground floor contains an entrance hall, drawing room, dining room, study, and central staircase, with a kitchen and breakfast room in the west range. Projecting from the west side are separate pantry and utility rooms to the north, and store and laundry blocks to the south, these enclosing a small service yard screened from the southern garden by a wall connecting to the western garage and workshop. The upper floor and attic have central landings serving four bedrooms with WCs positioned to the west of the stairs. The main approach runs via a drive arcing from the north-east off White Hill Road, with gardens surrounding the house to the south and east.

The principal elevation faces north and is informally arranged in a restrained Queen Anne style. A projecting stair tower with a hipped roof is offset to the west. The tower is rendered brick with quoined corners above the entrance, which has a part-glazed door with leaded margin lights beneath a conch shell hood set on scroll brackets. Above this is a large central leaded-light window to the stairs with a lozenge panel motif set below. The tower is flanked by brick bays—two to the east with irregularly-spaced windows beneath a hipped dormer, and one to the west with narrow window openings. The western service range steps down a storey, with the hipped-roof kitchen block standing proud of the rest of the north elevation and positioned in alignment with the stair tower. The north and south service ranges are utilitarian in character with hipped roofs. The north range has evenly-spaced windows to its north elevation and a combination of small windows and simple plank-and-batten doors facing the service yard. The south range has matching plank-and-batten doors to the north and an unbroken brick elevation to the south, continued by the screening wall to the west. The west end of this range has a tall chimney rising from its north elevation.

The south elevation to the garden is more formally arranged. It comprises three evenly-spaced rendered window bays standing just proud of the rest of the brick elevation, punctuated by narrow windows to both storeys. Between the lower and upper windows of each projecting bay is a recurring lozenge motif, and to the south roof pitch above, the hipped dormers are positioned in alignment, divided by a pair of tall brick stacks to the ridge. The east elevation, which overlooks a formal path across the garden, has a double-height canted bay window projection to its south side and simple casements to the north. A pair of hipped dormers to the east pitch of the roof are divided by a single tall brick stack. Windows throughout, except those to the stair tower, are later replacements.

The interior arrangement has been little altered since completion in 1915. The main entrance leads through a lobby with hexagonal red floor tiles and a secondary door with a leaded-glazed section into the entrance hall. The central dog-leg stairs are original, with wooden fretwork to the balusters and brass finials to the newel posts. The drawing room and dining room retain moulded timber fire surrounds with later insets, wide fielded-panelled doors with brass furnishings, built-in cupboards, skirting, moulded cornices, and window and door architraves. The study has matching fittings except with a smaller fireplace featuring a glazed cheek and floor tiles with a small cast-iron coal grate.

At first-floor level, the bedrooms retain original doors with brass furnishings, built-in cupboards, skirting, and window and door architraves. The fireplaces have moulded wooden surrounds and cast-iron coal grates bordered with glazed cheek tiles matching the study below. To the second floor there are further original doors with brass furnishings, built-in cupboards, skirting, and window and door architraves, though the surviving fireplaces are of different form—with lobed, moulded surrounds featuring a central rosette motif above the opening. The timber roof structure is visible in each upper bedroom, with original iron strapwork to the joins of the posts and braces.

To the garden is a formal pathway leading east, marked by a pair of stone piers with orb finials positioned between the house and the eastern end of the plot. The path terminates at a small brick outbuilding to the east side of the garden, which aligns with an enclosed narrow eastern section containing a north-south pathway. This leads through a gateway with stone piers with orb finials and an ornamented cast-iron gate to a circular pond with a central bowl fountain. The outbuilding is divided internally into two sections: a store area to the south and what appears to have been arranged and furnished as a children's play room to the north. The play room has miniature-scale fielded panelling and a rubble stone fireplace to the south wall, carved with a relief-carved centrepiece featuring a fox. Above the low-set panelling, the walls have applied brick panels in alternating regular and chevron form. The entrance is from the west through a rustic oak door with vertical strips of iron bolt riveting and a multi-paned mottled glazed section above. To the north is a leaded-glazed casement window with wrought-iron latches.

On the opposing side of the site, facing the western service yard, is a brick garage with a hipped roof and modern shutter. Abutting this to the north is a flat-roofed brick workshop block.