Marshcourt School

Marsh Court is a large country house dating from 1901-5, with extensions built between 1924 and 1926, designed by E.L. Lutyens for H. Johnson. The house is constructed of clunch chalk blocks, Portland stone, red brick, and old plain tiles, with an old plain tile roof.

The plan is based on an E-plan north entrance front, featuring corridors on both floors of the main range. Behind this is a taller south main range with a projecting wing to the east (left of the entrance front). A service courtyard lies to the east, with a large ballroom added behind it, to the south of the courtyard, extending east from the south facade, and completed in 1905 and 1926 respectively.

The north entrance front is low and long, two storeys in height, with seven bays, plus wings projecting forward at each end. A central two-storey gabled porch is punctuated by a Portland stone archway on the ground floor, its key blocks curving inwards, supported by detached arch with a plinth wall inside the main arch. The space beneath is vaulted in stone and tile squares. Above the archway are two-light casements. Either side of the porch are three bays with a blank centre bay, featuring chequered tile strips, and paired three-light mullioned windows, with similar windows above, and two-light windows over the centre bays. Hipped ends of the wings have raised eaves over canted, full-height bays with paired cross-windows and paired two-light casements above. Tile chequerwork is visible along the inner faces of the wings at ground-floor window level. All windows are leaded.

The roofs are hipped, with moulded brick stacks on the outer sides of the wings near the front and towards the rear. On the higher main roof are a large stack at the right end of the ridge, a stack to the right of the centre, and a stack behind the ridge immediately right of the centre. The south front is taller, with vertical emphasis, several projecting bays, and is asymmetrical, with one projecting end wing and an added, tall-roofed ballroom beyond it. The service courtyard is constructed of brick and has a more vernacular feel.

The interior remains largely as originally built.

Contemporary photographs (Country Life, 1932) and publications including "Buildings of England: Hampshire" (Pevsner, 1966) and "Lutyens: Arts Council Catalogue" (1981) provide further detail.