Meads

Meads is a large house completed by 1935, designed by Harold Falkner. The design was inspired by two barns or farm buildings from a Ma Phillips house in Alton, which were combined and remodelled. The steeply pitched tile roof descends very low. The house exhibits timber-framed construction, primarily visible on the entrance front and the south-west return wall.

The entrance front features post-and-panel timbering on the first floor, which overhangs the ground floor. It incorporates a two-storey timber-framed porch with an upper floor that cantilevers out beyond a three-centred doorway; a timber-framed projection with a half-hipped gable is located at the right-hand end of the front. Two window bays are positioned to the left and right of the porch, with the right-hand bays being widely spaced.

The south-west return wall is again of timber-framed construction, and the central portion rises to the apex of the roof, with windows on three levels. A large hipped tile canopy cantilevers out from the apex, supported on wooden brackets, above which is an oriel window of three lights in two tiers, flanked by single lights to either side. Below this is a four-light window, and on the ground floor, a three-centred, headed doorway with a moulded frame is flanked by a three-light mullioned window. A short distance before the doorway is a fountain with circular basins at different levels.

The garden front, facing south-east, has a wide half-hipped projection at the left-hand end, mirroring a projection in the corresponding bay of the entrance front. This section features a five-light splayed bay on both floors. To the northeast end, the roof slopes down lower, creating a single-storey and attic elevation, except for the central entrance bay, which is two storeys high with a hipped canopy. The ground floor window bays are largely arcaded, with an open colonnade in the three bays immediately to the left of the central bay; a flight of steps leads down to the garden terrace from the third bay.

An exit from the living room in the central bay leads across a patterned brick bridge over a pool and down a flight of steps to the terrace. To the right of the central bay are four arcaded wing bays, each punctuated by a buttress of brick and tile and containing a semi-circular lunette. A further window bay is situated to the right-hand side, with a half-hipped gable to the roof at the right-hand end.