Ridgemead

Ridgemead is a country house built in 1938 by the architect Robert Lutyens for Captain Woolf Barnato, with an addition made around 1974. It now functions as an old people's home. The building is constructed of white painted brick with Clipsham aslar dressings and a pantile roof.

The house follows a double-pile U-shaped plan. The principal garden elevation comprises an elongated 19-bay range of 2 storeys, which is treated as two distinct sections of 8 and 11 bays. The main entrance is located at the rear, opening onto a courtyard framed by side wings that project from the house at an obtuse angle and terminate in 3-storey towers. A secondary entrance on the right return opens into a second courtyard enclosed by bulbous curvilinear walls.

The architectural style is Spanish Mission, particularly evident in the fortress-like appearance of the rear elevation. Windows throughout are 2-light leaded casements with wooden frames, with some taller windows featuring transoms. The roofline is broken, with hipped roofs and various chimney stacks.

The garden elevation's right section is relatively plain, with a central bay projecting under a hipped roof and lower bays to the right. The left section features single-storey pavilions projecting at both ends, flanking a round-arched arcade to an internal loggia. On the first floor, a central 4-bay internal balcony sits beneath a hipped roof mirroring the main roof line. The pavilions have pilastered and corniced architraves to tall 3-light front windows and glazed side doors. The arcade contains central paired glazed doors with glazing bars and traceried fanlights, with circular motifs to the spandrels and a central motif below a sundial. The balcony features a pilastered parapet broken by openings containing decorative flower tubs, French windows to the house, and round-tile-arched recesses to the return walls. Projecting from the left return is a colonnade of square-section tile piers supporting timber lintels. Stone flower troughs are positioned in front of the pavilions. A single-storey added wing projects forward on the right side, executed in a similar style.

The rear elevation is fortress-like in appearance, articulated by towers, pilaster buttresses, and blind walls with small square windows. The main range has a tall lower storey and recessed upper storey. The central ashlar entrance is reached by broad, shallow steps and features a tall panelled double door with a panelled fanlight set within an indented-quoined round-arched surround below a cartouché that breaks the cornice. Flanking windows sit on battered bases with elaborate keystones. Tripartite windows occupy the side walls and wings. A broad elliptical-arched through-way opens to the left tower, and a garage doorway with panelled doors opens to the right tower, each with an adjacent pedestrian side door. Bulbous pot finials crown the towers. The right return is masked by stone-coped pilastered yard walls approximately 2 to 2.5 metres high and features a double panelled door in a stone surround with a bracketed pediment, along with hipped half-dormers. The left return includes a round-arched arcade infilled with French windows and recessed paired double-doors; on the first floor are two semi-domed stone niches with keystones lettered "W" and "B".

The interior features stone dressings, round archways, and coffered ceilings on the ground floor. Walls and doors are panelled throughout. The panelled stairway has a clock and barometer mounted on its side wall and rises gently to a landing containing a stone fireplace below a niche housing a compass with pointer, possibly connected to a weathervane. A fine marble bathroom is fitted with pilasters, a cornice, and round-arched mirrors.