The Red House

The Red House, formerly known as The Convent of Corpus Domini, is a house built in 1893 by Sir Edwin Lutyens for Susan Muir Mackenzie. It is constructed of red brick on a stone plinth, featuring Bargate stone dressings, with tile-hung gables and machine-tiled roofs, which are half-hipped to the right. The building is two storeys high with an attic in the left gable and a hipped roof dormer on the right. The plan is shaped like a half-H at the front, with projecting end bays and a wing at right angles to the rear left.

There is a massive stack at the left end and additional stacks at the rear. The windows are stone-dressed casements with chamfered surrounds, stone mullions, and tile-on-edge lintels. The left gable in the attic has a 4-light window, while the first and ground floors below have a 5-light window. A continuous strip of three 3-light casements runs under the eaves in the centre, with one 4-light window below. To the right, there are two 2-light casements under an ogee section parapet that leads to a set-back roof. The ground floor has two windows, one of which continues around the corner.

An arched door is located in the re-entrant angle to the left, framed by a stone chamfered surround and topped with a metal-covered hood suspended from hangers. There is a hipped roof service wing at the rear left, and a 20th-century wing was added to the right end when the roof was altered. Originally, The Red House was part of a garden designed by Gertrude Jekyll, a friend of the owner, and it represents an early work by Lutyens.