Champions Place, Including Attached Terrace, Terrace Walling and Steps

Details

303/0/10055
02-MAY-03

LIMPSFIELD
KENT HATCH ROAD
Limpsfield Chart
Champions Place, including attached terrace, terrace walling and steps

II

Large house, currently a private residential care home. Built in 1893 in Tudor style by Mervyn Edmund Macartney for H Hemmings Johnson and originally called "Champions". Circa 1913-14 enlarged and altered in matching style and materials probably by Granville Streatfeild of Westerham for Sir Benjamin Cohen, Barrister and KC., additions comprising Billiard Room and extension to service end, loggia and balcony to garden front and some internal reworking. Built of sandstone with tiled roof hipped to one end with five large sandstone chimneystacks. Two storeys and attics, asymmetrical building with irregular fenestration of stone mullioned windows. Plan form of corridor and staircase to entrance front with major rooms facing garden front.
EXTERIOR: North west or entrance front has large gable to right with second floor window now extended into exit for fire escape and two smaller windows to lower floors. To left is a projecting two storey entrance porch with finial to gable, round-headed opening under drip-mould to first floor, four-centred arched doorcase with outer double door and 12-panelled door internally. The adjoining section is set back with 6-light dormer, five pairs of mullioned windows to first floor lighting the staircase and one below. To the extreme left are two tall gables with finials, mullioned windows and two centred arched doorcase.
South west elevation has three casements to first floor and two mullioned and transomed casements to ground floor and the end bay has a catslide roof.
The south east or garden front has a left side gable with second floor 3-light, first floor 4-light and two 2-light windows to ground floor. The adjoining bay to right has one 2-light window to first floor and a two-centred arched door and square bay with 3-light mullioned and transomed window. There are two projecting gables, the left side one with 4-light mullioned and transomed window with tablet above and four-light mullion below. The right hand one has 5-light mullioned window to first floor and central 5-light and two 2-light mullioned and transomed windows to the ground floor. Between the two gables are two hipped dormers, two 3-light mullions to the first floor and an entrance opening on to a balcony over a wooden loggia. Balcony railings are late C20 and the loggia has been glazed between the posts. To the extreme right is a section of three bays with two hipped dormers with triple windows, and mullioned windows, two of the ground floor windows mullioned and transomed.
The North East front has two mullioned windows.
Attached to the south east front is a terrace with York stone paving, terrace wall with tooled stone coping and two flights of steps.
INTERIOR: The interior is largely unaltered since 1914 including a large straight floght oak staircase with turned balusters, pilasters and Jacobean style panelling to the hall. The former study to the south west corner has a wooden bolection-moulded fireplace with metal hood and the former Library to the south east corner has a stone bolection-moulded fireplace and overmantel incorporating a painting signed "A Lageo" thought to represent workmen levelling the ground nearby in order to build the house, flanked by snake-shaped metal candle sconces and original bookcases with pilasters and panelling. The large living room has an elaborate carved bressumer with coving, carved brackets with the date 1914, pilasters, stone four-centred arched fireplace with mutule and Tudor rose decoration and two built-in cupboards with serpentine shelves and panelled cupboards. The adjoining former Dining Room has a large bolection- moulded stone fireplace in wooden surround with high relief floral panel and pilasters. The last major room on the ground floor is the former Billiard Room which has an oak ceiling with some moulded and chamfered beams, Jacobean style panelling almost to full height but with moulded cornice forming a plate shelf and stone bolection-moulded fireplace set in wooden surround with mutule frieze, overmantel of linenfold panelling and fluted pilasters.
There is a painted wooden well back staircase and the service end retains some original features including the silver safe, tiled kitchen with original wooden fireplace and tiled larder with metal rail for hanging meat.
The first floor has a former Master's Bedroom with stone arched fireplace with blank shields in spandrels in wooden surrounds with fielded panels and Mistress' Bedroom with bolection-moulded fireplace set in a panelled recess. On this floor there are also two stone fireplaces with wooden surrounds with mutule and paterae decoration.
The attic retains two fireplaces with tiled surrounds, one pink, one blue and a series of smaller metal firegrates.
HISTORY: H Hemmings Johnson owned the property from 1893 until about 1913-14. Sir Benjamin Cohen lived there from this date until the early 1940s when it was bought by the Courtney family who changed the name from "Champions" to "Champions Place". In October 1951 the building was purchased on behalf of the Ministry of Health to be used as an annexe of Warlingham Psychiatric Hospital. It is currently in use as a residential care home.

[Jan Ward "Mervyn Edmund Macartney". Pp 48-50. ]

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

490065

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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