Terrace Wall And Steps Of Dunorlan To The South East Of The Former Dunorlan House

This terrace wall and steps were constructed in the 1850s and 1860s by the firm of James Pulham for Henry Reed, owner of Dunorlan. They sit to the southeast of the former Dunorlan house.

The terrace wall has a projecting curved central section flanked by straight sides, with flights of curved steps connecting to a lower level. The battered base of the wall stands approximately 10 feet high and is built of diagonally tooled sandstone, topped with a moulded cornice. Above the base is balustrading likely made of both stone and Pulhamite artificial rock. The central section features a moulded stone panel with scrollwork decoration, flanked by balustrading with shallow urns detailed with gadrooning. Curved stone stairs extend from this central section, terminating in cylindrical stone piers with battered bases and side walls with balustrading ending in further cylindrical piers. A second curved section leads to straight sides, each featuring three sections of balustrading and stone piers, with ball finials capping the end piers.

In 1823, John Ward, a partner of Decimus Burton, purchased Calverley Park Farm, which contained a chalybeate spring and was later sold to Henry Reed, who demolished the existing farmhouse and built Dunorlan in an Italianate style. The grounds were planned by the landscape gardener Robert Martock, and James Pulham was commissioned to create Pulhamite artificial rockwork, a cascade, a temple, a fountain of Pulhamite and terracotta, and likely reshape the lake. The terrace wall appears on an 1867 Ordnance Survey map. Henry Reed sold Dunorlan in 1874, and the estate remained in the Collins family until 1945 when Tunbridge Wells Borough Council acquired it. The main house was damaged by fire in 1946 and demolished in 1958, replaced by a later 20th-century house also named Dunorlan.

The terrace is significant as it was the original feature from which views of the pleasure garden, lake, and surrounding landscape were enjoyed and adjoins Dunorlan Park, which is also Grade II listed. It is an Italianate sandstone and Pulhamite structure, one of many garden structures produced for Henry Reed by James Pulham’s firm during the 1850s and 1860s.