Heatherwood South And Heatherwood West (Formerly Oaklawn)

Large detached house, now subdivided, built around 1891 by architect Thomas Maclaren for Mr THB Buckley in Arts and Crafts style. The building was subdivided in the late 20th century. A late 20th-century extension to the north east is not of special interest.

The house is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with stone dressings and tile-hanging, including some courses of fishscale tiles. It features wooden brackets, balcony and exposed rafter feet on the south east and north west sides. The roof is tiled with an external brick chimneystack to the south east and a ridge brick chimneystack to the north west. Windows are mainly wooden mullioned or mullioned and transomed casements with leaded lights to the transomes.

The building is asymmetrical, two storeys with attics. The principal rooms were arranged on the south west and south east sides, with the service end to the north. The ground floor comprised a porch leading into an L-shaped staircase hall, from which a drawing room led off at the south east corner. A dining room lay to the north of this, and in the south western corner were a library and business room, now combined into a kitchen. The service end included a kitchen, scullery and pantry.

The south or entrance front features a large tile-hung attic gable supported on wooden brackets over an attic casement window. A first floor triple casement is placed asymmetrically above the main entrance, which has a deeply recessed four-centred stone arched porch with a carved floral motif keystone and three lights to the fanlight. Behind is a three-panelled door with an opaque leaded glass fanlight and sidelight. To the left is a mullioned and transomed casement above a three-light canted bay. To the right, the gable is interrupted by a full-height external brick chimneystack with small windows serving an internal inglenook fireplace. Above this is a square stone sundial with bronze gnomon bearing the inscription "I COUNT NONE BUT SUNNY HOURS".

The south east or garden elevation also has a large tile-hung gable with some courses of fishscale tiles and an attic casement window. To the left is a two-storey canted bay with a tiled roof. There is a plain central casement, and the ground floor has a fixed casement with Chinese style glazing. To the right is a recessed wooden sleeping balcony with an arch featuring fretted spandrels, balcony with stick balusters, and a canted bay below.

To the north west is a projecting two-storey gabled section with an M-shaped roof and tile-hanging to the top of the gables, with a tall brick chimneystack set back behind. The attic has an original angled tile-hung dormer with a nine-paned casement and a later 20th-century flat-roofed dormer adjoining. The first floor has two mullioned and transomed casements above a later 20th-century full-width single-storey brick lean-to, which replaced an earlier smaller lean-to. The ground floor has an angled bay window at the junction between the south west and south eastern elevations.

The north west elevation has a gabled projection at the south end, followed by a two-storey canted bay which merges on the first floor into a mullioned and transomed casement. Below this is a panelled door, originally the tradesman's entrance. To the north is a first floor casement with a taller window below, replaced in the 20th century but retaining the original decorated wooden blindbox below. This elevation terminates in a lower section with a 20th-century casement and a later 20th-century brick gabled porch with a plank door.

The porch contains a half-glazed panelled door leading into the staircase hall, which has a staircase with stick balusters set diagonally, with some turned balusters interspersed, and chamfered newel posts with ball finials. The first landing has a reading alcove. On the first floor is an unusual wooden screen, panelled to the base with similar diagonally-placed stick balusters and turned balusters. Both the staircase hall and drawing room retain the original oak floor with thin marquetry bands. A seven-panelled door with brass fingerboards opens into the drawing room, which has a moulded cornice and an arched alcove in the south eastern corner containing a wooden fireplace with side panelling enclosing two angled wooden seats. An original fireplace is reported to survive in the dining room. The former library and business room have been converted into a kitchen.

This house was originally called Oaklawn and was the earliest notable independent commission of architect Thomas Maclaren, built around 1891 for Mr THB Buckley. Two perspectives of the house design were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891.

Thomas Maclaren (1863–1928) was the youngest brother of Scottish architect James Maclaren. At the age of sixteen he began an apprenticeship with Wallace and Flockhart. His first independent commission was a single-storey double cottage built in 1889 at the Grange, Crawley Down, Sussex on the estate of Mr JHW Buckley. Oaklawn was his next commission. In May 1892 he was admitted as an Associate of the RIBA. In the same year he designed a new vicarage in Horne, Surrey for the Reverend Ormsby Powell. His last commission in the British Isles was a housing scheme, Nos. 1–11 George Street Doune, Scotland built in 1894. By this time he was suffering from tuberculosis, the disease from which his elder brother James had died in 1890. In the winter of 1892–93, Thomas Maclaren left Britain to live permanently in Colorado, USA for health reasons. There he became a successful architect, designing over 150 buildings, including private houses, churches and public buildings.