Hawkshill Place

A large house built in 1883-4 by J. Loxwood King for W. Sandford Hodgson, a brewer. A billiard room was added and alterations made to the service end around 1900. The building was divided into three separate dwellings in 1957.

Construction and Materials

The house is built of yellow brick from Kent with Ancaster stone dressings and red plain tile roofs, which were originally Broseley tiles.

Plan and Arrangement

The house lies roughly south-west to north-east with the principal rooms overlooking terraced gardens to the west and south, and the service end to the north-east. The building closely resembles the 1884 plans and drawings published in The Building News, though with a less dominant tower than shown in those drawings. It is asymmetrical in both plan and elevations, rising two storeys with attics and featuring a three-stage tower. The entrance is on the north-west elevation.

The entrance front graduates from a tight composition surrounding the two-storey gabled entrance bay to the simpler eastern service end. The entrance is set forward with a tall gabled tower offset behind it to the east, and a lower two-storey bay accentuated by an external stack at the upper level to the west. The south-east garden front is more repetitive in manner, between set-forward gabled bays with the 1900 extension continuing the theme. Two-storey canted bays mark the south-west angle.

Exterior

The building is accentuated by moulded storey bands, flush stone sill and impost bands, flush brick relieving arches over the windows, and moulded brick eaves, cornices and kneelers. Windows are generally horned sashes, often grouped in pairs or threes, set in flush stone surrounds, some with shaped heads with flush kneelers and some under shallow hood moulds. Principal ground floor rooms overlooking the gardens have timber French windows in moulded architraves or stone mullion and transom windows with some fixed lights. Tall brick stacks with chamfered angles, moulded caps and pronounced flush stone shoulders are generally set across the ridges. The ridges have pierced cresting and some gables retain delicate iron gable finials.

North-West Elevation

The entrance is set back under a slightly pointed arch in brick and stone with a slender hood mould. The door has glazed upper panels with coloured glass and blind arched cusped lower panels. The robust iron door furniture may be a replacement. The upper floor over the entrance is set over a corbel table which is accentuated above the entrance, with a row of shields under a pair of first floor sashes and an oculus in the gable.

The tower has a tall mullion and transom stair window with slightly pointed upper lights, a three-light range of sashes on the upper floor, and a narrow lancet in the gable. To the west at ground floor, small sashes are set under a pitched roof. A single first floor sash is set back under a pointed arch with a smaller upper floor sash, framed by an external stack with pronounced shoulders.

The two-storey, two-bay centrepiece has a shallow gabled bay slightly set forward with an enriched ground floor cornice. To the east of it are plain sashes on both floors and a horizontal sliding sash under a dormer with decorative bargeboards. An entrance to Middle House has been inserted.

A two-and-a-half storey gabled bay to the east breaks forward. Ground floor windows are in pairs, divided by a possibly later buttress. At first floor there are triple sashes, and the gable has a single sash under a shaped head, defined by the half-hipped roof. The return has a large first floor window recessed under an arch beneath a small oculus, over ground floor sashes and a probably inserted doorway.

A shallower two-storey eastern wing of the service end is set back at the rear of a small yard marked by gate piers, one attached to the north-east angle of the house. An inserted entrance in the north wall leads into the East House.

South-West Front

The south-west front is marked by a three-bay verandah under a tile roof with tile floors. Pairs of timber shafts between moulded panels and with pierced spandrels support a moulded timber cornice. Windows are horned sashes in intact openings, and timber casement French windows.

South-East Front

The western gable has a narrow first floor canted oriel under a tile roof on an ornate bracket, flanked by single ground floor sashes in the manner of windows flanking an inglenook, but in this case with no stack. The central gabled bay is more simply treated, with the eastern gabled bay repeating the detail. Similar to the south-west front, French windows lead onto a verandah which survives in the Middle House, with a paved terrace.

The former billiard room is single-storey with a flat roof behind a plain brick parapet. It has single sash windows and a central altered entrance.

Interior

The house is divided into three across the ends of the longitudinal passages to form The Towers (containing hall, library, drawing room and former morning room), Middle House (containing dining room, servants' hall and butler's pantry), and East House (containing kitchen, billiard room and service areas).

Hall and Staircase

The hall is lit by a tall stair window with late 20th-century coloured glass. It contains an imposing closed-string, open-well stair with a fretwork panelled balustrade, square chamfered newels with ball finials and a moulded rail. The first floor landing is treated as a gallery with tall shafts and mouldings similar to the external verandahs. To the east the original stair continues to the upper floor but is copied to the west.

Principal Rooms

The drawing room has a deep moulded cornice and delicately panelled ceiling. The walls have eared panels below a moulded frieze. The doorway has an enriched architrave under a pediment. The door is of eight panels with steel door furniture, both similar to examples elsewhere in the house.

The former library has a mottled plum-coloured marble fireplace with a replaced grate. The pediment over the door is restored and the cornice survives.

French windows in each section of the house have enriched architraves and moulded panels beneath, with casements flanking the doors. The soffits of the verandah roofs are boarded with a moulded cornice.

The former dining room has a rich Lombardic cornice, deep skirtings and a possibly replaced fireplace with panelled shafts and a dentil cornice.

The former kitchen retains a large fireplace opening and plain surround.

First Floor

First floor rooms have plain grey marble fireplaces with basket-head grates. One with added coloured tile inserts is refitted but was found on the premises. The principal bedroom has a delicately moulded cornice, picture rail and pedimented doorcases. That to the entrance is original; that to the former dressing room is restored.

The former back stair, which has been extended, has chamfered square newels with ball finials, octagonal chamfered balusters and a moulded rail.

Details Throughout

Throughout the house, doors are of eight or four panels, some with ornate steel door furniture. Lincrusta paper survives on the stair and in a first floor former dressing room. Polychrome floor tiles survive in the entrance, hall and garden passage.

Historical Context

Hawkshill Place was built for W. Sandford Hodgson, a brewer, in the early 1880s as a substantial private house, complete with stable yard and lodge. The lodge marks the entrance from the Portsmouth Road. The house was set in landscaped gardens laid out with terraced lawns and planted with specimen trees and shrubberies. Much of this survives, so that the original context remains recognisable today—increasingly rare for a house of this type and period.

Little is known about J. Loxwood King except that he was based at 18 North Road, Surbiton. He trained under Henry Woodyer in Guildford and worked for three-and-a-half years for Alfred Waterhouse, who nominated him for the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1882. W. Sandford Hodgson is commemorated on a memorial plaque in Christ Church, Esher.