Description

WESTON LANE
656-1/27/1858 (South side)

The Park Preparatory School

(Formerly Listed as:
WESTON ROAD (South side)
Park Preparatory School)
05/08/75

GV II

Former detached house, now part of a school. c1840. Limestone ashlar, complex slate roof with tall octagonal shafts to moulded stacks. Double-depth plan. Tudor Gothic style.
EXTERIOR: Two and three storeys and attic; three bay front. A moulded coped parapet and string course rise over two forward-facing shouldered gables to the right and to the returns. Casement windows in flat-arched recesses with sunk spandrels to four-centred arched heads. The two-storey gable to the right has a single-shafted chimney as a finial; a label mould over a three-light, three-pane window to the first floor; a canted bay to the ground floor has a moulded coped parapet, string course, and a tall two-light window to the front. The smaller central set-forward gable is a two-storey porch with an octagonal finial similar but smaller than the stack to the right, with a fine wrought iron upper finial; a hip-roofed oriel window with shields in quatrefoiled aprons, one two-pane window to each facet; a label mould with ornamented spandrels over a Tudor-arched porch and half-glazed door and side-lights with Gothic glazing. The three-storey set back left hand range has a stack to the gable; a single-light attic window; the string course rises as a hoodmould over a two-light second floor window above a two-storey shallow rectangular castellated bay with a three-light window to both floors. The left return has two gables with triple-shafted stacks and hoodmoulds to the windows of a projecting right hand gable. The right return has external stacks, that to the left has two shafts, that to the right on a projecting gable has three shafts.
INTERIOR: Not inspected.
HISTORY: Originally called The Retreat, this Tudorbethan house is a good example of the Romantic tendencies affecting house design at the close of the Georgian period, and shows the adaptation for residential use of a style more usually associated with school and college buildings. It is in the manner of James Wilson's designs. Formerly a nursing home, it was adapted for school use in 1959. An assembly hall was added in 1982.

Listing NGR: ST7338965787

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26688945

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

• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)