Esher Place and balustrade to the east entrance

Esher Place is a substantial country house with a complex building history. Its central range and south wing were built in 1806–1808 by architect Edward Lapidge for John Spicer. Between 1895 and 1898, the house was extensively remodelled and extended to the north and north-east by G T Robinson for Edgar and Helen Vincent, who introduced an 18th-century French style. The landscape architect Achille Duchêne created the eastern forecourt. The building served as a children's home in the 1930s and was converted into offices and a conference centre for Unite the Union from 1952 until 2023.

The house is constructed of red brick with stone dressings. It has hipped slate roofs and a gabled stone slate roof over the early 19th-century phase, with irregularly placed stone panelled chimney stacks.

In plan, the building forms a broad crescent shape. The principal entrance is at the east of the central range, with a service wing to the south-east. The 1895 north wing is linked by an enclosed corridor to a converted Real Tennis Court, canted to the north-east. The polite reception rooms and bedrooms are located in the central range and north wing. Duchêne's forecourt provides a 'cour d'honneur' to the main entrance.

The principal frontage faces east and comprises a central range with two wings projecting forward to frame the west end of the forecourt, though not quite at the same angle. Throughout the building, the treatment is generally consistent: brick or stone elevations with stone dressings to the window surrounds (sills, lintels and segmental heads), stone plinths, storey bands and a moulded deep bracket cornice. The central range and north wing have pilaster bay divisions and some bay windows in stone. Windows are tall, generally casements of eight or twelve panes with central mullions and top openings; there are occasional circular windows (oculi) with glazing bars.

The principal east front of the central range is mostly stone-faced and has two storeys and an attic arranged across five bays above a stone plinth. The central three bays have a projecting entrance approached by a flight of stone steps, with an arcade of three partly-glazed entrance doors with semi-circular fanlights, above which is a balcony with stone balustrade. The first floor is articulated by paired Ionic stone pilasters; the outer panels contain partly-glazed French windows flanking a carved cartouche at the centre. The attic level has three six-light casement windows beneath a stepped pavilion roof, at the centre of which is a stone-framed oculus with segmental surround. The outer bays have arch-headed windows to the first floor and balustrades to the parapet above with oval dormer windows under projecting hoods. A stone storey band runs across the five bays at first-floor level, and there is a deep bracket cornice.

The central range is linked to the south wing by an angle bay with windows rising through two floors and a balustrade above. The south wing has eight bays with a projecting rusticated end bay. It consists of a basement beneath a deep single storey with a set-back attic under moulded eaves and a stone-slate gable roof above. The windows have cambered heads with scroll keystones, the window bays alternating with blind brick panels. The attic windows are late 20th-century replacements. Linked to the south is a six-bay, two-storey rendered range of lower height beneath a separate shallow hipped roof. The windows are late 20th-century replacements.

Linking the central range to the four-bay north wing is a brick bay containing a circular window at the ground floor and, at the first floor, an arched window in a roll-moulded surround behind an oval stone balcony supported by stone brackets with a wrought iron handrail. There is a double-height stone polygonal bay window with balustraded parapet to the north. This elevation is articulated with paired Ionic pilasters, similar to the central range. It has a shallow hipped roof. The ground-floor windows are twelve-pane casements with stone surrounds, and the first-floor eight-pane casement windows break into the cornice.

A seven-bay, single-storey link with a central stone entrance connects to the former eight-bay Real Tennis Court to the north-east. The latter has brick panels divided by stone pilasters with a moulded stone cornice to the mansard roof, which contains eight oval dormer windows in segmental hoods. In the early 21st century, narrow twelve-light windows were inserted into the formerly blind panels following the conversion of the building.

The west (rear) garden front retains much of the external envelope of Spicer's house by Lapidge, but the exterior treatment of the central range is consistent with Robinson's French-inspired remodelling. The rear of the central range has three bays with quoined edges and paired pilasters to the first floor, with double-height circular bays to each end. The pavilion roof is set back but visible above the plain parapet. An additional two-bay link is set back behind a balustrade at the first floor; the twelve-over-twelve sash windows at the first floor may be early 19th century. Adjoining to the south is the early 19th-century service wing of brick, generally laid in English bond, with 20th-century single-storey additions to the ground floor and late 20th-century replacement windows in original openings with straight brick heads. A flagged courtyard lies at the rear of the rendered component, defined to the south-east by a later extension.

The north wing has quoins to each end, with four French windows in stone surrounds at the ground floor leading onto the rear stepped terrace, with eight-pane windows above. The three-bay north return has a deep cornice and projecting central bay with quoins and a balcony at the first floor. The rear of the corridor and former Real Tennis Court follows the same treatment as the front.

The interiors of particular interest are situated in the polite central range on the ground floor and the north wing, which display 18th-century French-inspired opulent decorative treatment. The interiors of the south wing, first floor of the central range, link corridor and former Real Tennis Court are remodelled, converted to bedrooms, kitchen areas, staff accommodation and conference facilities from the 1930s onwards, particularly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Few historic fixtures remain in these areas, with the exception of some joinery and the stairs with late 19th-century splat balusters in the south wing, sections of egg and dart cornices and some fireplaces in the bedrooms of the central range, and a library cupboard on the first-floor landing of the central range. All doors are fire doors.

The internal character of the central range and north wing is characterised throughout by assured use of carved stone and wrought ironwork, particularly in the staircase hall, accomplished decorative plasterwork cornices, wall panels and ceilings, in addition to timber panelling particularly in the dining hall and library. Fireplaces of marble and other materials and plaster chimney pieces remain, as do panelled doors within decorative recessed architraves, joinery and ironmongery, particularly the window opening system. The plan-form is little altered apart from the subdivision of the picture gallery and remodelling of the theatre.

The ashlar stone-lined entrance hall leading to the staircase hall is the principal shared ground-floor space, accessed from the main entrance, with a black and white chequered floor and elegant ramped sweeping stone stairs in three flights with wrought iron balustrades. The high coved ceiling is supported by Corinthian columns and a moulded cornice and lit by oculi in the roof.

To the rear of the hall is the lounge with decorative plaster wall and ceiling panels; to the north and south are the circular former snooker hall and small lounge or withdrawing room with decorative plaster wall and ceiling panelling, re-gilded in the latter in the early 21st century. Archive photographs suggest that there were painted wall murals in the panels of the small lounge, but these are no longer evident.

To the south is the dining hall with richly carved boiseries (timber wall panelling) said to have come from France. In the centre of the wall panels and above the doors are carved images of musical instruments, theatrical scenes, cherubs and other figures.

Also on the ground floor is the library, to the north of the staircase hall, with fitted cupboards, shelving, window shutters, embossed wallpaper and a heavy cornice to the ceiling. Above the fireplace is a portrait of Lady Helen Vincent enthroned in classical dress holding a figure of Peace by Benjamin-Constant of 1893.

To the west is the former picture gallery, subdivided to form an office and access corridor to the theatre. The office space has wooden panelling and a modern suspended ceiling.

The former theatre at the north end of the wing was latterly the billiard room in 1923 and the Mandela Room during the ownership of the union. The ornate bridging beams and ceiling panels remain, as do the cornice and joinery, but the fireplace has been removed and the room reconfigured, including the insertion of a corridor at the east side.

On the first floor of the north wing, bedrooms are accessed from an axial corridor. They have all had ensuite bathrooms inserted but retain fireplaces, panelled doors, cornices, friezes, wall panelling, picture and dado rails, and joinery. One of the principal bedrooms facing east, with its own private balcony, has two painted roundels in square panels between the picture rails and cornice.

Duchêne's balustrade comprises a stone plinth and coping with a balustrade of vase-shaped balusters and piers. His authorship is recorded on a pier close to the central iron gateway, the latter comprising slender railings with decorative roundels.