Westbrook

Westbrook is a large house, now subdivided into a house and three flats, with an attached outbuilding range. Built in 1899-1900 by and for H Thackeray Turner, it is constructed of Bargate rubblestone with ashlar dressings and has plain tile roofs. The building is two storeys with an attic and is designed in the Arts and Crafts style.

The main garden elevation presents five irregular bays. Bay 2 projects as a gabled wing with a 4-light window to the ground and first floors (the latter transomed) and a 2-light attic window. A large external stack rises from the angle with bay 1, featuring a 2-light window at its base. The right return has a transomed 4-light window to the ground floor and a 2-light window above. Two bays to the right have ground floor accommodation beneath catslide roofs. A central arched doorway contains a recessed, nail-studded board door. Transomed windows of 3 lights and 4 lights are positioned to the left and right respectively. The first floor features 4-light flat-roofed dormers, while the attic has tile-hung, gabled, 2-light dormers with a tall stack between them. The right return contains a recessed ground floor with a 4-light window and a 2-light first-floor window. Bay 1 is treated similarly with a catslide roof over the ground floor, a 3-light window to ground floor and a 3-light flat-roofed dormer to the first floor. Bay 5 is set back and gabled, with transomed windows of 2 and 3 lights to the ground floor, 1 and 3 lights to the first floor, and a 2-light attic window. Entrance elevation windows are set in deep surrounds fronted by squat columns.

The former outbuilding range, set back on the right, has an arched doorway with a window to its right. Wooden mullioned windows with concrete lintels of 2, 4 and 2 lights are positioned to the right, with two later flat-roofed 4-light dormers and one former pent-roofed dormer to the left. A ridge stack rises to the right.

The rear entrance elevation features end bays that are gabled, with the left one projecting as a wing and having windows of 1 and 2 lights to the ground floor, 3 transomed lights to the first floor, and 2 lights to the attic, with a variety of windows to the right return. The right end bay is in line with the main range and has a lateral stack with a 4-light window to its left on the ground floor. The central part has an entrance on the right with a panelled door in a moulded architrave, protected by a gabled porch with paired Doric columns. To the far left is an inserted door (to "Top Flat"). Between the doors are windows of 2 and 4 lights. On the first floor, a near-continuous mullion window is set in an ashlar panel, broken on the left by a jettied section with windows of 1 and 2 lights, the latter under a gable. The left return has 2 doors flanking a 4-light transomed window with a 5-light transomed window above and a 2-light attic window. The left door is protected by a 4-bay hipped-roofed loggia which extends leftwards and has tile columns on a rubblestone dwarf wall. The right return contains transomed windows of 5 and 3 lights, the latter with a door (to "The Cottage") inserted. Another door (to the 3rd flat) is set in a late 20th-century porch in the left angle. On the first floor, a central transomed 3-light window rises under a gable with two 2-light pent-roofed dormers and a cross-ridge stack to its left. The outbuilding range (formerly stable, coach-house, and tool and coal store), projecting on the left, has board doors and leaded-light windows.

The interior retains much contemporary work, including wood panelling, decorative plaster friezes and cornices to the principal rooms. The drawing room has pine panelled walls, a decorative plaster ceiling and a wide fireplace with a pilastered architrave and Delft-tile surround. The morning room has a coved, ribbed ceiling with central floral decoration and pendant. The former dining room features a columned window alcove, a wide fireplace with green polished-stone panels and a tulip-decorated surround, and a pulvinated running pomegranate frieze. The entrance hall contains panelled doors, a plasterwork frieze (probably by George Bankart), an elaborate wrought-iron light fitting and a straight-flight wooden stair with bulbous balusters.

Thackeray Turner, a follower of Philip Webb, was an important theorist of architectural design but designed very few houses. Westbrook was his major work and remains an important example of his practice. Turner was also notable as the 2nd Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. The garden at Westbrook was laid out by Gertrude Jekyll.