Morebath Manor

Country house built 1892–4 for Charles Digby Harrod, owner of the Knightsbridge store, following his retirement in 1891. The architect remains unknown.

The house employs cavity wall construction with yellow brick and Bathstone dressings and quoins, slate roofs, and brick chimneys featuring tall red brick shafts decorated with ornamental brick mouldings and cornices. The rear elevation is rendered. The architectural style is an eclectic mixture of free Jacobean and Classical elements with some Art Nouveau detail.

The plan is approximately rectangular but irregular at the rear, incorporating a rear stair wing, single-storey billiard room, and servants' hall. The entrance is off-centre into the main block, leading to a small heated entrance hall with an axial passage to the rear and an open well stair opposite the entrance. An L-plan drawing room lies to the left, while the dining room and library are positioned to the right. A service block, slightly set back at the right end and double depth, contains a kitchen and scullery at the front, with an axial passage and range of subsidiary service rooms behind. The billiard room occupies the rear left wing, at right angles to the main range.

The exterior presents a modest, slightly asymmetrical elevation of 6 plus 3 bays, with the 3-bay service block set back at the right end. A platband with moulded cornice and stone quoins to the outer and entrance bays distinguish the facades. The outer bays of the main block are gabled to the front and broken forward. The entrance, in the third bay from the left, is similarly broken forward with a curly gable and ball finials. A large gabled glazed porch with ornamental ironwork and iron trusses guards the entrance, which features a half-glazed outer door with round-headed fanlight flanked by round-headed windows. Above the porch is a 2-light timber mullioned and transomed window, with similar windows in the adjacent bay to the right. Other front elevation windows are 2-pane plate glass sashes. The gabled left-hand bay has 3 ball finials and a 2-storey canted bay with a triple sash window above. Above this sash is a stepped panel of Renaissance-style carving and 2 slit windows in the gable. The lower-roofed service block has 3 bays of sash windows. The left return of the main block features a 2-storey canted bay. The rear stair wing has a mullioned window with stepped lights. Apart from a glazed hood formerly projecting from the porch, the exterior is complete, including rainwater heads and carved oak fascias in front of the sun blinds.

The interior is remarkable for the completeness of its original fittings, including light switches, electric fittings, wallpaper, and speaking tubes. Embossed wallpaper of various designs and compressed paper decoration to the ceilings, based on ornamental plasterwork, are throughout. Plaster cornices feature egg and dart, dentil, and bead and reel patterns, with ornate overdoors and original joinery and door and window furniture preserved.

The entrance hall contains a panelled outer door and 2-leaf inner door with delicate wrought iron foliage in front of frosted glass. A free Jacobean-style open well stair stands behind a 3-bay timber arcade with an arcaded stair gallery. The stair window employs ornamental leading using diverse patterns of white glass. A section of original silk wall-hanging survives in the stair hall, which retains its original stair carpet.

The L-plan drawing room features Adam-style decorated ceilings and 2 matching chimneypieces; it has been divided into 2 along a line of paired fluted columns which remain intact. The library and dining room have free Jacobean-style chimneypieces. The billiard room is absolutely complete with original light fittings, table, chimneypiece, and ornamental coloured stained glass.

The unmodernised kitchen includes a fitted dresser. A service stair with turned balusters gives access to the rear. First-floor rooms are equally intact, including a ladies' drawing room with more modest chimneypieces, original joinery, and further surviving lighting fittings, some said to be by Lalique.

This is a rare example of a completely unaltered country house of the 1890s, with the survival of vulnerable interior detail of especial note.