West Ridge

West Ridge

House, 1923, designed by G Blair Imrie of Imrie and Angell.

The building is constructed of red brick and timber-frame, with a tile-hung first floor and clay tiled roof. Windows are steel casements with leaded lights, some with square quarries and some diamond-shaped, held in mullioned, pegged oak sub-frames.

The house is situated on the east side of Walpole Avenue, an elevated no-through road laid out in the early 20th century following the opening of Chipstead railway station in 1897. The sloping site rises to the east, with the house positioned close to its eastern boundary. The building is L-shaped in plan, framing a gravelled entrance forecourt to the south and east. The main family rooms occupy the south range running east to west and facing north, while service areas are in the longer, narrower east range running north to south and facing west. The house is not visible from the road; a driveway sweeps round to approach from the north.

The south range is elevated on a low terrace with a stone retaining wall. Entry is through a vestibule into a hall running along the north front, with a drawing room, study, dog-leg stair and dining room overlooking the garden to the south. At the outer corner of the L is a snooker room, originally an open-fronted loggia subsequently enclosed. The service range contains a pantry, kitchen, former maid's sitting room, store rooms and coal store, with self-contained chauffeur's accommodation at the far north end including sitting room and garage on the ground floor and two bedrooms above. The first floor rooms comprise owner's bedroom, dressing room, bathroom, second bathroom, spare room, day nursery, night nursery and two small interconnecting maids' bedrooms.

The main north front is an asymmetric composition enclosing the forecourt on two sides. A flat-roofed lift tower has been added at the inside corner of the L, with materials well-matched to the originals. Roofs are hipped with gablets, stepping down in height from the south to east range and again over the garage, with an irregular arrangement of mullioned windows at different heights and several hipped roof dormers. Three tall ridge stacks have corbelled caps and mortar flashings studded with pebbles. A large external stack on the north front intersects with a two-storey gabled entrance bay, brick on the ground floor with a shallow jettied timber-framed first floor featuring curved braces, close-studding and brick and tile nogging. The sole plate is supported on scrolled timber corbels. The entrance is approached up four shallow steps through a four-centred arched opening in the brickwork, leading to a vestibule with an offset timber plank door with iron studs and forged strap hinges, held in a pegged frame with segmental head.

The west end of the south range has a square bay window and exposed timber-framing on the ground floor with brick and tile nogging; the tile-hung first floor is jettied out above. The framing continues round to the south-facing garden front, stylistically nodding towards the Wealden-type hall house with a simpler formal arrangement than the north elevation. It features an almost symmetrical arrangement of windows and a central section at ground floor recessed beneath a first-floor jetty supported on full-height curved braces with padstones of clay tiles laid on bed. A central six-light mullioned and transomed hall-type window on the first floor lights the stair. At the east end is the former loggia with a low hipped roof, now infilled with two pairs of French windows with leaded glazing.

The east elevation is the rear of the house near the back boundary, giving external access to the service quarters, continuing the palette of materials and detail with a more prosaic composition.

The interior appears very little altered. The main hall has a subtly vaulted ceiling and quarry tile floor. The dog-leg stair is oak with a balustrade of heavy turned balusters and newels with ball finials. The dining room has the most elaborate scheme in a loosely 17th-century style, with dark-stained oak panelling lining the walls and integrating doors of a service hatch linking to the pantry. Two moulded timber beams span the ceiling with intervening plasterwork edged with a grape and vine border, and plasterwork motifs of animals and plants form a frieze at the wall head.

The drawing room has a coved cornice and a large open fireplace with clay tile grate, a heavy stone bolection-moulded surround and curved stone hearth. Other family rooms are simply appointed without plasterwork but with oak skirting boards and picture rails, with fireplaces having moulded or flat timber surrounds with tiled slips. The study features Delft tiles, and the day nursery has Delft nursery rhyme tiles. Built-in bedside cupboards survive well with hanging rails, drawers and shelves. The kitchen and pantry retain fitted cupboards and dressers as well as white-glazed tiling with timber edging. Many bathroom and sanitary fittings survive, including an impressive original shower fitting and tiling similar to that in the kitchen, with Delft tiling in the second bathroom. Doors and ironmongery are mainly nine-panel oak with cock's-head hinges and lever handles on decorative plates.

The south range is raised on a low terrace, with the wider site terraced to address contours falling from east to west. Terraces are contained by retaining walls of squared random stone cut through with flights of stone steps. Other landscape features include a paved terrace with fish pond overlooking the garden to the south and a long walk running southwards from the house terminating in an octagonal garden room defined by low stone walls. To the west of the house at the lowest garden level is a swimming pool, originally built as an open-air pool with stone paved surround, since enclosed by a late 20th-century metal and polycarbonate pool house with repaved edges. Outbuildings on the site were not inspected.