Westwood Lodge, including balustrading and steps

Westwood Lodge, including balustrading and steps

A holiday residence built in 1864 for London stockbroker Spencer Herapath in the Gothic style. A billiard room with bedroom above and an extension to the north side were added between 1907 and 1936. The service wing, partly dating from 1864 and partly from later in the 19th century, was further extended after 1936 and is not of special interest.

The building is constructed in Kentish Ragstone with stone dressings and wooden barge boards. The roof is clay tile with moulded terracotta chimneystacks and Staffordshire Blue ridge tiles, some with intact decorative finials. The servants wing to the rear is in yellow stock brick laid in Flemish bond.

The plan is asymmetrical. Originally the building comprised an entrance hall, well staircase, two reception rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor with bedrooms above, and separate service quarters. This was modified by the addition of a billiard room with bedroom above between 1907 and 1936 and the extension and attachment of the service wing from 1896.

The west or entrance front is of three bays with a central three-storey tower with a steeply pitched roof and ornamental iron finial. The tower features a lancet window to the attic under a gable, a first floor oriel window, and a recessed entrance under a four-centred arch with drip mould. The entrance door is half-glazed with armorial stained glass motifs in leaded panes. To the right is a large gable with fretted barge boards with pendant, a stone tablet with shield, a first floor arched casement window and a ground floor window with segmental head. To the left is a set-back bay with a first floor arched and gabled semi-dormer with fretted barge boards and pendant, and a projecting square bay below with a triple mullioned and transomed casement window with a pierced frieze of quatrefoils.

The south or garden front is also of three bays. The west bay has a first floor arched and gabled semi-dormer with fretted barge boards and pendant, and below a projecting canted bay with triple mullioned and transomed casement with a pierced stone cornice. The central bay projects with a gable featuring fretted barge boards and a stone tablet with shield, a first floor arched mullioned and transomed casement with pierced quatrefoils and a ground floor segmental-headed French window. The right-hand bay is partly single storey with a canted bay having a pierced cornice but has a set-back upper floor under a hipped roof with three casement windows. Further west is a later two-storey flat-roofed extension with two casement windows and the hipped end of the service range.

The east side is also of three bays. To the north is a projecting gable with fretted barge boards with finial and pendant and an ornamental date stone of 1864, a first floor arched window and canted bay to the ground floor with a cornice of quatrefoils. The remaining two bays have a semi-dormer with a fretted barge board with finial and arched window, and a projecting ground floor with two casement windows and a service entrance.

The north side has a gable with arched first floor window and attached two-storey yellow brick service quarters.

Attached to the main entrance is a tiled path connecting to stone balustrading on the south and west sides with shallow stone urns at the corners and two sets of piers flanking shallow flights of steps.

The main entrance leads into a staircase-hall with a multi-coloured geometrically patterned tiled floor, a well staircase with octagonal end newel post and slender turned balusters, a staircase window with leaded lights containing some stained glass cames, and an arched half-glazed door with stained glass sunray pattern.

The north drawing room has a moulded cornice and two moulded ceiling beams supported on shield brackets. The south dining room has a similar cornice and two ceiling beams but the brackets have carved flowers.

On the first floor, a tiled bathroom retains an early 20th-century shower apparatus reputed to have been used as a treatment for epilepsy. A south-east bedroom has an early 20th-century wooden fireplace with mirror and tiled surround. Other fireplaces in the house were replaced in the 1930s.