Sackville School

Sackville School

School, converted from a country house originally called Foxbush. Built in 1866 to the designs of G. Somers Clarke. Red brick with blue diapering and stone dressings; brick chimney stacks; peg-tile roof. The building displays High Victorian Gothic externally, showing 15th-century French influence, whilst the interior is an eclectic mixture incorporating Jacobean and Renaissance elements.

The plan is almost identical to Mountains, an adjacent house built in 1865 by the same architect. It follows a double-depth plan on a west-east axis with the entrance on the north side. The arrangement is a long, asymmetrical, approximately rectangular form with a chapel wing projecting to the front left (north east). A corridor runs along the long axis with principal rooms facing south. A garden door opens from the corridor at the west end. The entrance leads into a large heated hall containing the stair, with a service wing to the left (east) and a service stair off the axial corridor.

Externally, the house is more irregular than Mountains, comprising three staggered blocks plus the chapel wing, with the middle block forming a crosswing. The main structure is two storeys with a three-storey crosswing and single-storey chapel. All elements have steeply-pitched hipped roofs. Brick chimney shafts carry corbelled brick cornices and moulded vertical ribs. Stone mullioned windows throughout feature moulded stone lintels, some with high transoms, others with engaged shafts bearing carved capitals. All are glazed with plate glass sash windows which may be original.

The north (entrance) elevation spans approximately seven bays in an asymmetrical arrangement. The battlemented projecting porch to the right of centre has diagonal buttresses and a three-centred moulded stone doorway with hoodmould and carved label stops. A carved stone rebus panel in the central merlon depicts a fox under a bush. Flanking the porch are single-storey flat-roofed projections with three-light windows. To the left of the porch, the stair window breaks the eaves with a tall gable containing a two-light transomed window and a two-light traceried roundel in the head. Three first-floor two-light gabled dormers are positioned across the main elevation. The front right projection bears a finial at the roof apex, a three-light ground-floor window with shafts and carved capitals, and a two-light gabled dormer above. The three-storey crosswing to the left features two gabled dormers and two- and three-light windows. The inner (west) return of the chapel wing has two gabled dormers acting as clerestory lights and three ground-floor windows. The north end of the wing is crowned with a pyramidal roof with lucarnes and a lead finial.

The garden (south) elevation displays a complex fenestration pattern. A polygonal projecting bay to the left of centre features a faceted conical roof and tall finial. To the right of the main block sits a single-storey projecting bay with a hipped roof and four-light window. The elevation contains one-, two- and three-light windows with four gabled dormers to the main block, one to the crosswing and two to the service block at the right (east) end. Various lower-roofed service blocks adjoin at the east end, arranged around a service courtyard entered on the north side through a moulded archway east of the chapel wing. The west end of the house features a stone doorway into the axial corridor with a deeply-moulded lintel and an overlight below the hoodmould.

The interior is well-preserved and demonstrates considerable craftsmanship. The porch's inner door has a heavy moulded lintel and an original panelled door opening into a lobby with glazed roof. The doorway from the lobby into the hall features irontwist shafts and a large overlight. The panelled hall contains moulded ceiling beams and a massive Tudor-style chimneypiece with panels of carved armorial bearings. The original stair features turned balusters.

The principal rooms on the ground floor each display distinct stylistic treatments. The westernmost room is panelled in an early 18th-century style with a good plaster cornice and white marble chimneypiece. The centre south-facing principal room is panelled with engaged Corinthian columns, a plaster cornice and marble chimneypiece with Ionic columns. The drawing room to the east is fitted out in Jacobean style with exposed ceiling beams, panelling, panelled doors and a stone chimneypiece. The chapel features a timber barrel ceiling.

The first-floor principal rooms display good cornices and chimneypieces. The westernmost room contains a particularly striking High Victorian chimneypiece of green marble and alabaster. A former bathroom on the first floor is entirely lined with circa 1920s coloured marble.

This is a High Victorian country house, very complete externally and containing interesting internal features. It has group value with The Lodge.