35 & 37 BEACONSFIELD ROAD built c.1833? (Listed) or Gothicised c.1851?

Architectural description - Small Gothic 2-storey block with cellars, in red sandstone with steep slate roofs, 2 gables to the road and 2 to the right, with stone copings and finials and entrance gateway with stone piers panelled with quatrefoils above the panels. (Entrance on left is modern). On both floors 3-light stone mullioned windows under gables with a 2-light window between (and attics lit by single lights), all with labels. Front door on right has stone Tudor arched porch, second front door (in modern porch) to road shows block is two houses.

Stylistically - An example of the pre-Pugin phase of the Gothic Revival, with the leitmotifs of mullioned windows with dripstones, and the Tudor arch of the square topped porch. Note the unarchaeological placing of an oriel window at ground floor level, and also the castellations of the yard wall tops. After c.1848 the carriage drive to Beaconsfield was sited here and a photograph shows the gate piers with Gothick lanterns with a crest of fleurons and at the bottom a kind of cusping in the metalwork.

However, a closer look reveals that the main roof of the block is at a lower pitch than the gables, the tooling of the quoins appears earlier than on windows and porch, the door under the porch has a 'Georgian' fanlight, the high level window in the left gable is round headed and a section of square lead-lined gutter survives at the back of 35 - all adding up to the conclusion that this is an earlier vernacular type building that was Gothicised when it became the entrance lodge to Beaconsfield some time after 1848.

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