Description

785/0/10117 SOUTH HILL
02-FEB-05 Sira main building ( originally called
Sitka )

GV II
Large detached house. Built in 1883, Architect Ernest Newton (1856-1922) for Emil Teichman. Olde English style. Ground floor red brick, upper floors tile-hung with plaintiled roof, chimneys removed. Two storeys and attics: seven windows. Timber mullioned or mullioned and transomed casements.
EXTERIOR: North east entrance front has three projecting gables to the left, the central one with second floor four-light window and supported on wooden jetty and brackets. The first floor has three windows including central four-light oriel. The ground floor has a large porch with round-headed arches and pilasters, formerly open but now enclosed. The round-headed doorcase is dated 1883 with the incised inscription "Welcome by day, welcome by night the smile of a friend is a ray of light". The other gables have four-light casements to ground and first floors and three-light windows to attics. Set back service wing of two bays to right with two gabled dormers and three-light windows. The rear or south west elevation has two central gables with elaborate fretted bargeboards with two attic windows, three first floor windows and an oval window and canted bay window to the ground floor. This is flanked by two most unusual two storey curved bays with conical roofs and wooden balconies. To the left is a projecting gable with fretted bargeboards and five-light mullioned and transomed casement to the first floor Billiard Room. The ground floor has a C20 brick extension (not of special interest). The south east elevation has three gabled dormers and mullioned or mullioned and transomed windows but a later C20 lean-to extension to the ground floor (not of special interest). North west elevation in similar style but with C20 conservatory to ground floor.
INTERIOR: The staircase hall has a most unusual full-height oak staircase with arched galleries, pierced screen and first floor "pulpit" from which the owner led household prayers. Top lit lantern with coved cornice. Ground floor front room has cornice with ovolo moulding and brackets. Rear former Drawing Room has good quality Adam style plastered ceilings with fasces, swags, urns and four oval medallions with nymphs and moulded plastered cornices wih plumed design. The former Dining Room has an oak fireplace with fluted pilasters, reeded frieze and coloured tiles, two built-in cupboards and a bracket and ovolo-moulded cornice. The former Dining Room retains an elaborate oak fireplace with brackets, round-headed arches, carved floral panels and ceramic surround with reeding and sun pattern, dado panelling and bracket and ovolo-moulded cornice. The former first floor Billiard Room (not seen) may retain a gallery with round-headed arches. An original elaborate cast iron radiator screen remains to the first floor of the main staircase. The service staircase has diagonally placed stick balusters and turned column newels.
HISTORY: The original owner, Emil Teichmann made his fortune in the Alaskan fur trade and the house was called Sitka after the capital of Alaska. A sketch drawing is held in the RIBA drawings collection. After Teichmann's death the main house was used as offices for the Southern Railway during the Second World War and in 1947 became the headquarters of SIRA.

An early and interesting house by the eminent architect Ernest Newton with unusual full-height curved bays to the garden front and a possibly unique staircase.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670584

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

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)