Little Thakeham

[4] Lutyens' client was Ernest Blackburn, formerly the headmaster of a preparatory school in Southborough, Kent, who had retired on receiving an inheritance from his father, a wine merchant.

He commissioned the architect F. Hatchard Smith to build a house on the site, but by April 1902 Blackburn was dissatisfied with the half-built brick villa.

Further to the east, continuing the line of the central bar, is an additional wing, originally the service quarters,[3] which contains the only remaining walls of Hatchard Smith's demolished villa.

[5] The south, garden front of the house has four gables, one on each wing and two in the middle; at the centre is a two-storey, mullioned, polygonal bay window.

The north, entrance front of the house has a central porch giving access to an east–west corridor, south of which are the main staircase and the two-storey hall, separated by a stone screen.