Ladywell Convent

Ladywell Convent, Ashstead Lane, Godalming

House, now convent. Built in 1910 by Sir Guy Dawber for Major-General D A Scott. Converted to a convent in 1956, with additions made in the 1960s by G Clay and partners.

The building is constructed of Bargate rubble-stone with red-brick dressings and has a plain tile roof. It is arranged in a U-shaped plan open at the front. The main spine range extends seven bays, rising to one storey with attic at the front and two storeys at the rear. A central two-storey porch and two-storey stair towers project from the angles, with wings extending from the end bays. The right wing is one storey with attic over two bays; the left wing is two storeys with attic over three bays, plus a fourth single-storey bay, and a ten-bay one-storey extension dating from the 1960s. A further 1960s wing extension projects from the left end of the main range. To the rear right corner projects a U-shaped 1960s cloister, open at the front, with a chapel in the spine range; from its right a further wing extends, not of special interest.

The house is designed in Jacobean style, featuring double-chamfered mullion windows with king-mullions, leaded lights and dripmoulds. Decorative details include brick eaves bands, towers with modillions, wooden gutters and downpipes, metalled ball finials, and tall chimneys with ribs and cornices.

The entrance front features a prominent porch with a studded wooden door of four raised and moulded panels, fitted with a large iron knocker. The door has an inner wood architrave with brattished top and a heavily-moulded brick outer architrave with pilaster-corbels supporting a cornice and segmental pediment broken by a swagged cartouche surmounted by a deer. A pedimented two-light window sits above the door, and the porch has a crow-stepped gable with one-light windows to the returns. Flanking the porch are eight-light windows and three-light dormers beneath swept hipped roofs. The stair towers have two-light windows; the right tower features a double-transomed stair window to the front and a single-transomed window to the left return, while the left tower has a three-light window on the ground floor front. Cross-ridge stacks to the main range sit behind each tower.

The right wing displays a six-light window with a transomed four-light window above at the gable end, a two-light window and two-light dormer to the left return. The left wing, from left to right, comprises a single-storey end bay with a four-light window and pyramidal roof, four-light windows to each floor, a two-light window on the ground floor with the first floor blind and rising into a gable with a two-light attic window, and a two-light window with a four-light window over and two-light dormer. An external triple-flued stack sits at the left end. The 1960s wing extension is set back and follows the same style with a near-central tower. The 1960s cloisters are similarly styled, the chapel rising tall with a tall window, crow-stepped gable, and an octagonal, tile-hung, clock and bell-tower.

The garden front (rear) is symmetrical, with a central external stack featuring a dated first-floor sundial with inscribed stone plaque beneath, and tripled diagonally-set flues. Flanking four-light transomed windows on the ground floor are followed by gabled bays with six-light windows on the ground floor and four lights above, all transomed. The left bay has a cross-window to the inner return, and the right bay has an arched doorway. The outer bays have three transomed lights to the ground floor and four lights above; the ground floor of the left bay is masked by a cloister addition. Set back on the right are two further bays with windows of four and two lights to the ground floor and four lights above. Further right is a 1960s wing extension in keeping with the original design.

The interior preserves contemporary features. Principal rooms face onto the garden with a corridor along the front. Surviving elements include tiled fireplaces, some with decorative surrounds, and a panelled central ground-floor room with large scantling and elaborately stopped beams with double-doors opening into rooms at either end, which have barrel-vaulted ceilings with plastered, leaf-decorated ribs. The former billiard room in the right wing has a strawberry-decorated ceiling frieze and a large embrasure flanked by panelled pilasters with obelisk finials. The main stair has moulded, square-section balusters and finials to newels. First-floor rooms retain tiled fireplaces and tiled window sills.

The house was originally called Tensley Court.