Broadoaks

Broadoaks is a detached country house, originally built in 1876 by Ernest Seth-Smith for his elder brother Charles. It incorporates an older house at ground floor level, with early 20th century additions made for Sir Charles Tennant, including a projecting Drawing Room around 1905 and a Ballroom around 1908. A 1970s office extension is not of particular architectural interest. The house is constructed of red brick with tiled roofs, exhibiting crowstepped gables, eaves bands of diagonally-set bricks, dormers and tall brick chimney stacks with enriched brick cornices and bands. It has two storeys, attics and a cellar.

The long entrance front has an irregular arrangement of windows. The entrance is within a timber-framed porch with a pitched roof, bargeboards, small-pane glazing and wrought iron gates. A three-light oriel window is supported by stepped brick corbels. There is a gable end with a full-height chimney breast and stack, alongside further bays of two and three-light windows set beneath pointed strainer arches. The garden front mirrors this style, featuring projecting bay windows for the Drawing Room and Ballroom.

Inside, a small vestibule contains a carved stone fireplace in an 18th-century style. The staircase has a rectangular plan with newel posts carved with shell and fruit drops, twisted balusters and an enriched closed string. The French 18th-century style Drawing Room is richly and delicately gilded on all oak surfaces, with a panelled dado, a chimneypiece with a round-arched mirror, cornices and door and window frames. Another marble fireplace bears gilt acanthus leaves and other decorative features. Two sets of double-leaf doors are also gilded, with the initial "M" for Marguerite, and overdoor panels depicting putti painted in grisaille, framed by armorial devices and flanking putti. This gilding work was undertaken by Italian journeymen. The Ballroom features an elliptically vaulted ceiling with enriched ribs and pendants, full-height panelling, and a full-height stone chimneypiece displaying armorial devices. Other rooms contain fireplaces, panelling, built-in display cupboards and enriched cornices.

Broadoaks was sold to Sir Charles Tennant in 1898, a wealthy industrialist and patron of the arts who, at the age of 75, had recently married his second wife, Marguerite. The house served as a London entertaining residence for the Tennants, who primarily resided in Scotland; Surrey was a popular location at the time. The property was then owned by the Charrington brewery family from 1911 to 1946, after which it was sold to the Ministry of Supply. Between 1948 and 1996, it housed the Army Operational Research Group and remained in military occupation.