Horsley Towers

Horsley Towers is a country house, now a staff training college, located near East Horsley. The original house was built between 1820 and 1829 by Sir Charles Barry for William Currie in Tudor Gothic style. It has been significantly extended and modified over the subsequent decades.

The first Earl of Lovelace added a tower to the west end and built a hall in 1847. Following his visit to the continent, he commissioned further extensions: a tower was added to the east, cloisters were built to the north in 1859, and a chapel was completed to the north-east in 1860.

The original house is constructed of flint facing with brick and stone quoins and dressings, whilst the extensions use flint rubble with polychrome brick dressings. The original house has slate roofs, while the towers are topped with plain tiled roofs. The building is arranged on a square plan around an internal courtyard, with "Albanian" cloisters added to the north on a double courtyard plan incorporating a round tower at the south-east corner of the eastern courtyard.

The east-facing entrance front features a two-storey hall to the right and a two-storey gable end with gable-lit attic to the left. A four-bay hall range has stone-dressed, mullioned and transomed windows with decorative glazing bars. A round bay rises for the full height of the hall to the right. The projecting gable end to the left displays string courses at ground, first and second-floor levels, with a three-light window on each floor featuring similar glazing. A square tower set in a re-entrant angle is topped with a square ogee dome and weathervane finial, with decorative banding around the upper stage and a circular bay to the front on the lower stage. A buttressed and gabled portico to the left has a chamfered arched entrance with steps leading to partially glazed massive doors.

To the right of the portico, a projecting two-storey wing terminates in a large three-storey circular tower with attic, standing on a large circular bastion with a north-west staircase turret. Slit openings in the bastion walls appear beneath complex brick machicolations and arcading. Different patterns of complex machicolations feature over each stage and at the eaves of the ogee turret roof. The ground floor displays six brick-dressed lancet windows, the first floor has six two-light pointed windows in brick surrounds, and the second floor contains sixteen pointed windows in highly decorative surrounds. Four gabled dormers punctuate the roof.

The south front rises three storeys across five windows. Large central and four smaller gables are separated by parapets. Casement windows occupy four bays at ground and first-floor levels, with the central bay flanked by octagonal buttresses beneath a balustraded parapet.

The west front features a tall gable end with stack to the right, a projecting gable end with further stack to the left, and a lower four-bay range between with three gables. A large square three-stage tower stands in the left-hand re-entrant angle. String courses mark the ground and first-floor levels. Casement fenestration includes attics in gables and dormers. A single-storey angle bay projects to the right. Massive towers with offset round turret buttresses occupy the west angles. Single-storey cloisters extend to the left and north side.

The cloisters comprise two curved courtyards with first-floor windows of three round-headed lights featuring variegated brick heads, chamfered surrounds, and decorative glazing. A pierced parapet masks the roof over machicolated eaves. The west front is flat with eleven windows and an octagonal turret with an ogee slate roof at the north-west corner. The north front curves. The smaller eastern courtyard is separated from the larger cloister by a cloister range with six pointed windows over a horseshoe-shaped, three-step brick-edged arched entrance. The north wall is similarly curved, and a bridge to the south connects the chapel to the tower.

In the interior, most original finishes have been removed, though some panelling and panelled ceilings survive. A large Gothic square staircase and a massive Gothic-style hall remain. One arched ceiling truss of hammer-beam type in the hall bears an inscription commemorating the use of steam to bend it into shape. A minstrels' gallery occupies the west end.

The cloister interiors feature rib vaults with decorative brick patterning. The chapel interior is High Victorian Gothic, with vaulting, spandrel paintings, and vivid stained glass.