Battledown Tower

CHARLTON KINGS

SO92SE STANLEY ROAD 630-1/2/111 Battledown Tower 14/12/83

II

House. 1863-9. Dated 'BT 1869'. Possibly by Henry Dangerfield, Borough Engineer, for Charles Andrews, speculator. Rubble, laid 'crazily' with ashlar and red and green stone dressings, ornate tile roofs and ashlar end stacks with cornices. Gothic Revival style, asymmetrical. EXTERIOR: two-and-a-half storeys with belvedere tower with saddleback roof to north-east and tall single-storey range to right again; 2 + 1 windows. Chamfered plinth. Cross-mullion windows with rounded upper corners and relieving arches of alternately-coloured voussoirs; attic windows with cusped lancets, all windows in quoined surrounds. Gothic gabled timber porch in angle with set-back bay to right, entrance a double part-glazed pointed door with Y-tracery, quatrefoils to spandrels and decorative barge-boards with finial at apex; within a pointed plank door in chamfered surround and hollow- and roll-moulding to head, hoodmould with foliate stops. Above an oriel bow on first floor and shaped gable to attic dormer. Top-lit extension (kitchen or billiard room) to right has French windows in shaped surround. Left hand return has initial 'R' carved in panel on extended chimney; 3 gables with decorative barge-boards. INTERIOR: includes: open-well staircase with stick balusters; shutters to some windows; moulded cornice to room to left, otherwise not inspected. HISTORICAL NOTE: the Battledown Estate was laid out in 1858 by Henry Dangerfield, Borough Engineer. This was one of the first three houses to be built. Apparently undergoing restoration at time of Review. (O'Connor DA: Battledown The Story of a Victorian Estate: Stroud: 1992-: 74-5, 86).

Listing NGR: SO9654322034