Court Garden

This is a cottage, originally built as the gardener's cottage for Stoodleigh Court, now part of Ravenswood School. It dates from around 1883 and was likely designed by Sir Ernest George and H E Peto, who were responsible for the design of Stoodleigh Court itself. The cottage is constructed of stone rubble with decorative dressings made from Ham Hill stone, and it features a timber-framed gable. It has a red tile roof with gables at each end. A projecting brick stack is located on the right side, and another on the rear left corner. The architectural style is Vernacular Revival, intended to complement the main house.

The plan is asymmetrical, roughly in the shape of a ‘T’. The front of the cottage has two windows, with a gable on the right. A short wing, set slightly back to the left, has a roof that slopes down to form a porch, supported by a timber arch. The main entrance door is located in the return on the left side of the right-hand block. This block has a timber-framed gable, a three-light stone mullioned window on the first floor, a four-light bay window on the ground floor, and a single-light stone window, likely lighting a lobby. The right return has two stone windows on the ground floor, one on either side of the projecting stack, which serves the service drive to Stoodleigh Court. The cottage is considered the most complete and unspoiled estate cottage within the former Stoodleigh estate, and its design was clearly intended to harmonise with Stoodleigh Court.