Description

WARGRAVE

1110/0/10016 CHURCH STREET
17-APR-03 THE WOODCLYFFE HOSTEL

GV II

Working Men's Club, now in community use. 1905. Cole A. Adams for Harriette C. Smith. Red brick with stone dressings, brick plinth with blue brick coping. Pebble dash and terra cotta decoration. Hipped tiled roofs with brown brick chimney stacks. Two storeys plus attic; aligned N-S with facade to N side of Church Street, and lower range to rear. Domestic Revival inspired style.
EXTERIORS: SOUTH facade with recessed ground floor beneath continuous wood cornice and central brick pier. To right, 3-light window with stone cill then entrance with part glazed wood panelled door in stone surround with moulded architrave and ogee arch to lintel. To left, 5-light bay window. First floor with 4 openings, 3 with 6/6 wooden sashes under gauged red brick lintels and with stone cills. Second opening from left is blind brick with ornate Baroque decoration in terra cotta and lettering that reads, 'THE WOODCLYFFE HOSTEL FOUNDED AD 1905'. To east, pair of decorative iron brackets supporting an iron rod from which hangs an oxidised copper sign with decorative border and lettering, 'THE WOODCLYFFE HOSTEL'. Above this floor a continuous pebble dash frieze with geometric patterns, then shallow wood cornice with dentil eaves. Hipped roof with central pair of gabled dormers each with pair of leaded light casements and a central sundial. To east, brick gate pier capped with stone coping and large stone ball. Similar frieze and cornice wrap around to front range of EAST elevation also with corbelled chimney breast at first floor. Flanking this, leaded lights within shouldered stone architraves, the larger one to the left reads 'exact position of antient light in old cottage which stood here until 1904'. 2-light sash windows. Paired angled brick chimney and flat roof dormer with 2 leaded lights to hipped roof. Further north, a single bay 3-storey tower with framed by brick pilasters and capped with high curved parapet. This bay with full height sash window lighting stair, with small leaded panes and rounded fanlight all under keystone. Above this paired smaller sashes also with leaded panes, pair to second floor with terra cotta aprons. To rear, lower range plainer with hipped slate roof, first floor brick band, tall 12/12 sashes to ground floor and paired sashes above.
INTERIOR: Ground floor front room has large wood chimneypiece inset with many Delft tiles and cornice. Above this, main room panelled with similar cornice, smaller wood fireplace with Delft tiles, and to east a raised niche framed with wide ogee niche and with wood fireplace inset with decorative tiles. Prominent staircase with turned balusters and heavy turned newels continues to attic level. To rear former billiard room with herringbone wood floor and C20 inserted ceiling. Wood panelled doors, architraves and cornices throughout. Porcelain sinks at attic level.
HISTORY: Funded by local benefactor Harriette C. Smith, an active promulgator of the Temperance Movement, who with her husband, William Smith funded several buildings in Wargrave including the Grade II Woodclyffe Hall around the corner. A plaque announces that the building was used as a V.A.D. Hospital from Dec. 1915-Feb. 1919, staffed by a Berkshire Branch of the British Red Cross Society. The Hostel replaced three cottages on the site and their former presence is noted by the inscription of the position of the 'ancient light in old cottage which stood here until 1904'.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26388386

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

• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)