Chiltern House

House built in 1907 by the architects Hill Bros. of Northwood, Middlesex, for Arnold Bidlake Mitchell, FRIBA (died 1944), a well-regarded Mayfair architect, for client E.G. Eardley-Wilmott. The property stands in a residential area on the edge of Gerrards Cross, on the corner of The Woodlands road, originally known as 'Corner House'. It was built during the period of rapid expansion following the arrival of the railway in 1906, when Gerrards Cross and Beaconsfield attracted a number of houses designed by renowned architects.

Three storeys, with the upper two contained within a cruciform-plan roof. Brick ground floor with red tile-hung first and second floors and plain red-brown tile roof dropping steeply to the heads of the ground-floor windows. Two tall and narrow brick chimney stacks. Narrow painted barge boards. The rectangular plan has main facades to the south (a gable facing The Woodlands) and to the east (the longer side). Entrance on the west side with a simple round-headed recessed porch containing an original studded oak front door; a subsidiary door to the north leads into the kitchen area.

South front features a bow-window to the ground floor serving the parlour, with two painted small-paned two-light timber windows to the first floor and one to the attic. East front has a bow window to the ground floor serving the dining room, flanked by a larger window to the left (parlour) and a smaller one to the right (kitchen), with three in-line casement windows to the first floor and one to the attic. West front has a hall window beside the porch, with two casement windows to the first floor and one to the second. North front has a bay window to the ground floor, two casement windows to the first floor and one to the second, and a door to the basement.

The interior features a spacious, panelled entrance hall (now painted; originally limed) with heavy plaster cornice and fireplace. Panelled doors with original furniture lead to the parlour and dining room. The parlour to the south has a Jacobethan plaster cornice with moulded foliate decoration and a fireplace in the north wall. The dining room has a plaster oval with foliate decoration to the ceiling and a fireplace in the north wall. The staircase rising from the west side of the hall to the first floor has straight, chunky spindles with a broad moulded handrail, continuing to the second floor via winds with straight spindles and a curvilinear bannister rail of simple rounded profile. First- and second-floor bedroom doors are simple and four-panelled. The service rooms to the rear, including the kitchen, have been considerably remodelled.

The original household comprised approximately six family bedrooms plus perhaps another two for servants in the second-floor attic (the precise original allocation is uncertain). In addition to the garden around the house, a large summer garden occupied the opposite side of Woodlands road, sold off for development in the later 1970s.

Attached to the north-west corner of the house is a long, single-storey brick extension of the 1930s with a semi-industrial character, now converted to residential use. This extension is not included within the listing.