Listed Building: BRANKSOME DENE CONVALESCENT HOME (101702)

1. ALUMHURST ROAD 5l86 (West Side) Branksome Dene Convalescent Home SZ 0690 2/68 17.1.71. II 2. 1860, E B Lamb for C A King, vastly enlarged circa 1880 for Lord Wimborne (probably by W H Romaine-Walker) and circa 1913-14 for Sir Ernest Cassel (interiors by Sir Guy Dawber). Original villa plain Barry-Italianate, buff brick and stucco, 3 windows wide. 3 canted bays to garden (west) elaborate wrought-iron verandah with pairs of fluted Ionic colonnettes at centre and ends, scrolly openwork arches between. Garden terrace balustraded, with urns, large formal garden. Entrance front (east) with rusticated stucco ground floor, tripartite windows on 1st floor with segmental pediments over centre lights. Console-bracketed eaves, balustraded parapet. Big south wing circa 1880 of similar character (2 more canted bays to garden). North wing with lower service rooms, extended circa 1914 by long plain range recessed behind earlier Jacobean billiard-room. Interior has 2 living rooms from Lamb, with rich plaster cornices and rosettes, mixing arabesque, French and foliage patterns. Staircase hall skylit, with glazed round-arched clerestory and tall tripartite doorway to service wing, elaborate scrolly stair rail. But the house's importance lies in the interior of the south wing: 3 rooms and a garden lobby, all interconnected by sliding doors. 2 end rooms have surprisingly classical interiors of circa 1880, each with genuine Adam-period chimneypiece surmounted by richly garlanded round-headed window (with coat-of-arms at apex). Bay windows flanked by fluted piers, friezes of alternating triglyphs and medallions, ceiling frame of guilloche. The present Board Room is a classical cube of circa 1914 by Dawber. Walls panelled in mahogany with segmental pedimental over overmantel, genuine Georgian fireplace (frieze of Diana). Deep coving to ceiling, acanthus pattern to circular ceiling frame. Also by Dawber the groin-vaulted passage to south wing. Listing NGR: SZ0695790324

Record last edited

Nov 1 2006 4:40PM