Ravenswood School

Details

SS 91 NW STOODLEIGH

9/160 Ravenswood School -

GV II*

Country house in use as school. Built as Stoodleigh Court in 1883 by Sir Ernest George and H E Peto for T Carew Daniel (Girouard). Stone rubble with Ham Hill dressings, some tile-hung and timber frame gables; red tile roof with some concrete tile replacement; stacks with tall stone shafts. Free mixture of Elizabethan and Old English style. Plan: Principal rooms in the east range to the left, lesser rooms in the west wing forming an L plan; service rooms arranged around a service courtyard behind the west wing adjoining at the right (west). The east range has an approximately central porch on the north side which leads into a 2 storey open hall to the left, the principal stair rising within the hall at the right end with a gallery leading to the master bedrooms. Library to left of hall; morning room and drawing room to the rear of the hall overlooking the gardens to the south. To the right of the porch an axial corridor against the front wall gives access to the dining room and billiard room behind, nursery accommodation above on first floor. The west wing rooms are smaller and appear to be offices and service rooms on the ground floor with guest accommodation above. Kitchen and further service rooms to the right arranged round a rectanglar service yard which has been roofed over in the 1980s. The house is said to have been designed for electric light, which is advanced for the date, with its own generator; ornamental radiators and cast iron pipes suggest that the central heating system was integral to the design. There has been little alteration to the fabric beyond repartitioning the morning and drawing rooms and the roofing over of the service yard. Exterior: 2 storeys and attic, designed to look like an evolved house, most of the windows stone mullioned with square leaded panes but varied by timber framed and tile-hung gables and some timber casements. Long asymmetrical entrance (north) elevation to the east range with an approximately central 3-storey gabled entrance porch, the buttressed open hall to the left with a projecting polygonal hall bay; to the right of the porch 2 timber-framed gables to the front and a 2-storey lean-to. Porch with segmental stone doorway, below 2 tiers of stone mullioned windows; three 4-light hall windows each with 2 transoms; fine hall bay with parapet entirely glazed with tall mullioned windows with 4 transoms; mullioned windows to left of hall and right of porch. Single-storey polygonal butler's passage in angle between east range and west wing with series of mullioned windows. The 8-bay west wing has 3 gables to the front and a segmental arched carriage entrance to right of centre giving access to the former service block; stone mullioned and transomed windows throughout. The garden elevation of the south range is asymmetrical with 3 gables to the front and a gabled projection approximately in the centre providing a drawing room bay and a more shallow projection at the right end; painted sundial on front. Tile-hung gables associated with the service rooms and offices. The exterior is very unaltered except for some of the leaded pane glazing which has been replaced in a small number of windows. Interior: very complete. Entrance from porch into small panelled room which gives access to the 5-bay great hall with queen strut collar and tie beam roof trusses with curved braces and wind braces. Massive ashlar hooded chimneypiece; tall panelled dado with frieze of carved heads. Fine stair at right end of hall with Jacobean balusters and carved gryphon finials. The stair leads to a gallery overlooking the hall in the rear wall with 3 segmental arched openings; timber corner oriel projects into the hall from the gallery. Elaborate wrought iron and brass light fittings above the dado frieze may be original. The L-shaped drawing room has a fine ornamental plaster ceiling with moulded ribs and Renaissance details of arabesques and grotesques; co-eval carved chimneypiece. Panelled morning room, sub-divided in the C20 with a C20 chimneypiece. The library preserves an original chimneypiece and bookcase fittings. Other notable survivals are a complete set of veneered fitted cupboards and drawers to the master bedroom; joinery and door and window furniture; many original chimneypieces; wall friezes in the nursery rooms and timber fitted cupboards, dressers and a desk in the secondary and service rooms. Ground plan and entrance elevation published in Building News, July 13, 1883: some variations between published elevation and existing details of west wing.

Listing NGR: SS9169418675

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

96807

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Building News in Building News, (1883)

End of official list entry

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