Description

0/D EGHAM U.D. RIDGEMEAD ROAD
(north side, off)
Englefield Green
Ridgemead
II
Country house, now old people's home. 1938 by Robert Lutyens for Captain Woolf Barnato,
with C1974 addition. White painted brick with Clipsham aslar dressings and pantile
roof. Double-pile U-shaped plan. 2 storeys: elongated 19-bay range facing garden;
main entrance at rear, opening onto courtyard framed by side wings projecting from
house at obtuse angle and terminating in 3-storey towers; another entrance on right
return opening into courtyard enclosed by bulbons curvilinear walls, that on right
returning to adjoin reap side-wing. In spanish Mission style, rear fortress-like.
2-light leaded casement windows with wooden frames and taller windows with transoms.
Broken roof line with hipped roofs and various stacks.
Garden elevation: treated as 2 sections, of 8 and 11 bays: right section fairly plain
with central bay projecting under hipped roof and bays to right lower. Left section
has single-storey pavilions projecting at ends flanking round-arched arcade to internal
loggia; on 1st floor central 4-bay internal balcony under hipped roof mirroring main
roof; pavilions have pilastered and corniced architraces to tall 3-light front windows
and to glazed side doors; arcade has central paired glazed doors with glazing bars and
traceried fanlights, circular motifs to spandrels, central one below sundial; balcony
has pilastered parapet broken by openings containing decorative flower tubs, French
windows to house and round-tile-arched recesses to return walls. Projecting from left
return a colannade of square-section tile piers supporting timber lintels. In front
of pavilions stone flower troughs. Projecting forward on right, single-storey added
wing, in similar style, not of special interest.
Rear elevation: fortress-like appearance given by towers, pilaster butresses, blind
walls with small square windows, tall lower storey and recessed upper storey to main
range. Central ashlar entrance up broad, shallow, steps has tall panelled double
door and panelled fanlight is indented-quoined round-arched surround below cartouché
which breaks cornice; flanking windows set on battered bases have elaborate keystones;
tripartite windows to side walls and wings; broad elliptical-arched through-way to
left tower and garage doorway (with panelled doors) to right tower, each with
pedestrian side door; bulbons pot finials.
Right return, maksed by stone-coped pilastered yard walls approx. 2 and 2 1/2 metres
high, has double panelled door in stone surround with bracketed pediment, and hipped
1/2-dormers on right.
Left return: round-arched arcade to left infilled with french windows and with
recessed paired double-doors on right; 1st floor, 2 semi-domed stone niches with
keystones lettered "W" and "B".
Interior: stone dressings; round archways; coffered ceilings downstairs; panelled
walls and doors; panelled stairway has clock and barometer on side wall and gently
rising stair; landing has stone fireplace below niche containing compass with pointer
(to weathervane?); fine marble bathroom with pilaster, cornice and round-arched
mirrors.
C Hussey, "Ridgemead - Englefield Green", Country Life, 10 February 1940
pp 144-148 and 17 February 1940, pp 172-176.

Listing NGR: SU9898872458

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26658500

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  For the Record
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014