Wilsley Hotel

Wilsley Hotel, Cranbrook

A house, now operating as a hotel, built between 1864 and 1870 for the painter John Calcott Horsley RA by the architect Richard Norman Shaw. This was Shaw's first important domestic commission. The building incorporates an 18th-century house to the left and a 17th-century outbuilding to the right.

The main structure is constructed of red and blue brick in a chequer pattern on the ground floor to the left, with a mathematical tiled first floor over timber frame. There is a single red brick bay at the entrance on the left side. Red brick additions extend to the right, including a square projection containing the hall with tile-hanging on its first floor. A lower timber-framed studio wing occupies the right side, with red or blue brick chequer on the ground floor and tile-hanging on the first floor, projecting at the entrance on the right.

The main block features a bracketed eaves cornice with plain tiled hipped roofs. A stepped hip rises to the left, and a hipped projecting wing extends to the right. An off-centre square pavilion-like cupola sits on the main ridge block, with the roof hipped up to the right and a ribbed brick stack behind. Two ribbed brick stacks stand behind the main ridge to the left, and a tall ribbed brick stack occupies the angle of the projecting wing to the right. Two pediment-gabled dormers are positioned in the centre of the main block. The studio wing to the right has a low hipped plain tiled roof with very tall flat-headed semi-dormer studio windows on the east and north elevations.

The building is two storeys with attics. The front elevation displays a regular five-window arrangement in the centre with glazing bar sashes with open boxes, except for one wooden cross window with casements on the first floor centre and an outer left-hand blocked window on the ground floor. A single bay window is positioned to the left, with its window now blocked. To the right are ovolo-moulded transom and mullion windows, with a single bay between the main block and projecting wing containing very large main hall windows on the ground floor. The studio wing features almost continuous diamond lattice windows with deep reveals on the ground floor, with a single window on the right return front. The entrance in the centre of the main block has double glazed doors.

On the north side, a large end transom and mullion window serves the Music Room. The west front shows a square projecting block containing the original fireplace to the right, heavily built up above, with the hall to the left. This section is tile-hung over the ground floor, with plaster-decorated cove carried around an inglenook on the ground and first floors, and a plaster-decorated half-hipped gable above. A quarter octagonal bay terminates the hall to the left in a recess to the half-timbered music room, which features a central pantile-roofed bay. Various later additions exist at the entrance to the right.

The interior features a ribbed entrance hall ceiling. The main hall has a ribbed ceiling with incised plaster-decorated panels and incorporates a large inglenook-type fireplace with flanking windows. The Music Room includes a gallery and ribbed bay window, with a Delft-tiled fireplace. The studio wing retains exposed timber-frame with notch-jowled posts and a queen truss roof.

The building is listed Grade II* as one of the earliest examples of the vernacular Queen Anne revival, a style of which Shaw was later to become the principal exponent. Particularly notable is the survival of the decorative plaster cove at the rear, which features Japanese-influenced design including a peacock with 'eyes' made from green bottle-bottoms, alongside the inscription 'UNLESS THE LORD BUILD THE HOUSE THEY LABOUR IN VAIN THAT BUILD IT'. J E Horsley RA was a prominent member of the Cranbrook School of painters.