India House

India House is a substantial town house built around 1766–7 for Captain John Gould, a tea planter who made his fortune in Calcutta. The architect is unknown.

The house is constructed of brown brick laid in Flemish bond with areas of lime tuck pointing, red brick dressings, and red rubbed and gauged brickwork, beneath a clay tile roof. Its plan is complex and reveals a history of enlargement. The main east front is a single storey of piano nobile raised above a semi-basement, but the rear rises to two storeys. The interior plan centres on a broad entrance hall with rooms to either side; this leads through to a rear hall on the same axis, also with flanking rooms. A stair compartment lies to the right of the rear hall. The first floor contains two rooms. Breaches in the north wall at basement and first-floor levels connect the house to the adjacent No. 13 Hawley Street.

The symmetrical east elevation is dominated by a fine pedimented doorcase with fluted Ionic columns, enriched frieze, and panelled reveals. An oeil-de-boeuf window sits above. The doorcase is approached by a stone perron stair carried on an elliptical vault, with simple wrought-iron balustrades terminating in scrolls and newel posts in the form of turned balusters; bootscrapers flank the entrance. The three bays are marked by a moulded-brick pediment in the parapet continuing into the cornice. The crenellated parapet has been largely rebuilt. Windows have 19th-century moulded stone cills with brackets. The basement is expressed as a slightly projecting plinth marked by red-brick banding. The south flank wall has a moulded stuccoed plinth with 20th-century openings (post-1910). The rear elevation is symmetrical with three bays. A late-20th-century full-width extension now obscures the semi-basement, though windows are retained within small wells. The central pedimented doorcase has been modified as a window. Windows throughout generally have flat gauged-brick arches and flush sash boxes with timber two-over-two sashes of 19th-century or later date. A stuccoed 19th-century garden entrance abuts the south wall with a moulded cornice on consoles.

The interior is more spacious than the front elevation suggests. The ground floor retains its original plan and good survival of decorative features and fittings. The entrance hall is a fine full-height space with tall fielded panels framed in enriched plasterwork, enriched moulded dado rails, and a modillion cornice. The oeil-de-boeuf window has an enriched surround and panelled reveal. The front rooms have panelled shutters and window aprons. The left (south) room features enriched fielded panels and a moulded cornice; it contains a marble neo-classical chimneypiece on the inner west wall with green marble slips and a duck's nest grate, imported from elsewhere. The right (north) room has a modillion cornice. An elliptical arch with fluted pilasters and panelled intrados leads from the entrance hall to the rear hall, marking the transition between the one and two-storey sections. A compact close-string well stair to the right of the entrance hall has slender turned balusters and column newels, a ramped mahogany handrail, and a dado rail. Round-arched alcoves with fluted pilasters flank the former rear entrance, now a window. Ground-floor doors and most windows have eared architraves; doors are six-panel. The rear north room contains a marble chimneypiece, also probably imported. First-floor rooms have Victorian fireplaces. The basement front rooms retain features of interest, including plain full-height timber panelling, a flush fire surround in the south room, shutters, and cupboards. The north room contains a spine beam with moulded chamfers and lamb's tongue stops. The rear section has been much altered.

Captain John Gould (1722–84) was a wealthy tea planter appointed a Commissioner for Restitution following the Siege of Calcutta in 1756. He returned to England in 1766 and settled in Margate, in what is possibly the earliest recorded example of retirement to the seaside. The theory that India House was a replica of Gould's house in Calcutta is unsubstantiated. Gould is buried in St Leonard's Church, Upper Deal. After his death, the house served as a local office of the East India Company. From 1897 to 1927 it was the home of Phyllis Broughton, the celebrated music hall actress and 'Gaiety Girl'. Since then it has been used as offices.

India House was built during Margate's emergence as one of England's earliest seaside resorts, developing from the 1730s as a fashionable destination for wealthy visitors from London pursuing salubrious air and seawater bathing. Early expansion took place inland from the historic centre, developing northwards. Other surviving buildings from this period include Cecil Square (1769), the first Georgian square built at a seaside resort, and Hawley Square (circa 1790).