The house uses local building materials, including Horsham stone tiles, and the two wings are spayed at an angle towards the late-afternoon sun.

Originally built for Frederick Mirrielees, whose fortune came from shipping, "as a home of rest to which ladies of small means might repair for holiday", Goddards was configured as two cottages linked by a common room.

[4][5] In 1898, Frederick Mirrielees, who had made his money in shipping, commissioned Edwin Lutyens to design a "home of rest to which ladies of small means might repair for holiday.

[2] In the same year, the Halls hosted an exhibition on Lutyens, which helped to revive interest both in the architect's work and in the wider Arts and Crafts movement.

As part of the same project, the external brickwork and stonework was repaired, including the partial rebuilding of one of the chimneys on the north side of the house.

[21] Stylistically, the house sits within the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement and combines Tudor and vernacular influences with contemporary ideas from the end of the 19th century.

[9][20] The clay tiles of the main roof are plain, but the lower courses are slabs of Horsham Stone, which form a pentice above the canted bay windows.

[27] For example, the entrance from the west-facing courtyard is positioned at the south end of the common room, rather than in the centre, and this imbalance is accentuated by a dormer window above.

"[28] The historian, Jane Ridley, notes that the internal features such as the timberwork, larder ventilators and decorative ironmongery were influenced by ideas later expounded in Gertrude Jekyll's book, Old West Surrey, published in 1904.

[23] The common room, modelled on an open medieval hall, is typical of this vernacular aesthetic, with exposed timber beams and a large fireplace at one end.

[1][11] The roof of the single-storey arcade is supported by brick arches which lead into the orchard[4] and which, according to Dominic Bradbury, "help to define a functional, yet quietly beautiful space.

[32] The architectural historian Brian Edwards suggests that the 1910 additions may not have been completely successful and notes that Donald and Mary Mirrielees never permanently moved to Goddards, only using the house to host weekend parties.

[6] Designed by Gertrude Jekyll, it was intended to be low-maintenance and lacks the large herbaceous borders and pergola structures typical of her work.

"[26] The east garden is screened from the road by a boundary hedge containing beech, elm, hawthorn and holly, thought to pre-date the house.

"[44] In Landmark : A History of Britain in 50 Buildings, published in 2015, the architectural historian, Anna Keay, writes: "Goddards embodied the Arts and Crafts ideal of an honest, unpretentious home.

"[11] The writer, Alan Powers, considers the building to be one of three houses that exemplify the Arts and Crafts movement: "Goddards… is a good representative of the period… when [Lutyens] came closest to the Modernist idea.

Butler, George Stewart and Christopher Hussey point to the sheer number of different building materials used at Goddards: "…roughcast, moulded brick, stone, Horsham slates and ordinary roofing-tiles are too rich an agglomeration in so small an area.

"[46] The critic, Ian Nairn, echoes this point, noting that Goddards has "a promising asymmetrical style ruined by slack elevations and a remarkably unhappy choice of materials..."[47] In a similar vein, Daniel O'Neill writes: "The feeling is of congested display and pictorial gymnastics for its own sake.

"[27] O'Neill is also critical of the wing extensions added during the 1910 remodelling: "One cannot help thinking that Lutyens was trying too hard for sculptural effect in the build-up of small roof sections.

"[27] In contrast, the architectural historian, Gavin Stamp, writes: "These new end wings are superb examples of Lutyens's handling of form, with wall planes stepped back by slated slopes... – a system of sculpting mass similar to that employed on the Cenotaph a decade later.