Longholt And The Wing

Longholt and The Wing

Longholt was built in 1911 to designs by H R and B A Poulter, FRIBA, for Viscount Lester Ramsay de Fonblanque. The Wing was added in the 1920s as a service wing but has been a separate dwelling since around 1960.

The building is constructed of white-painted brick with red brick chimneys, corner quoins and string course. The roof is covered in clay tiles. Windows are timber, predominantly multi-light sashes, though some are side-hung casements.

The plan is only one room deep with a long, narrow footprint. The wide front and rear elevations face east and west respectively. Principal rooms are arranged linearly facing west onto the garden and are accessed from a hall running just inside the east front. Entry is through a central lobby opening into the hall.

The building is two storeys high beneath a hipped roof with sprocketted eaves. Below the eaves is a timber modillion cornice. The entrance front is an asymmetric composition around a central projecting hipped-roof lobby with a pair of three-panel entrance doors surrounded by a deep eared architrave. To the right of the lobby the elevation advances slightly beneath a pair of hipped roofs. A hopper beneath the string course is dated 1911. To the left is a large external side-wall stack with decorative projecting brick corner bands above eaves level. Windows vary between eight-over-eight pane sashes, and pairs of four-over-four and six-over-nine pane sashes, with several small casements.

The west elevation is more formal and almost symmetrical, nine bays wide with a pair of French windows just off-centre to the right. Two-bay, two-storey bows project to either side. Ground-floor windows are eight-over-twelve pane sashes and those above are eight-over-eight pane sashes. All windows on the west and south elevations have green-painted louvered shutters. To the far left is a cross wing added in the 1920s, detailed to match the original house. Its projection partially screens the former service wing, now The Wing. The west wall of the cross-wing is two bays wide; the right-hand bay was originally open-fronted to the south, providing loggias at ground and first floor. A timber conservatory has been added at ground floor, and at first floor the loggia has been enclosed with a casement window inserted. The left-hand bay, now lacking its original green louvered shutters, was part of the service wing and now forms part of The Wing; the parts of the west wall and roof belonging to The Wing are included in the listing for their architectural integration with Longholt.

The interior of Longholt is simple but little-altered, retaining original cornices and joinery including six-panel doors to principal rooms. Of the three principal ground floor rooms, one (identified as the smoking room on an early floor plan) has lost its fireplace. The drawing room has a herringbone parquet floor, plaster panels above a dado rail, and a full-height hardwood chimneypiece comprising a moulded fire surround and mantelshelf with a grid of unmoulded panels above. The slip and hearth are of polished black granite. The fireplace in the dining hall has a simple oak surround with a deep mantelshelf and pale polished stone slip and hearth. The stair is straight with a painted square newel and closely-spaced square balusters supporting a hardwood handrail. Some bedrooms retain their fire surrounds, which are painted cast iron or tiled with deep friezes and mantelshelves.