In designing this house, Webb used a style that is bare of all ornament and makes no explicit reference to the Gothic Revival architecture sweeping London at the time, as the new Parliament buildings were undergoing reconstruction. The use of red brick rather than stone, the absence of projection elements, and the avoidance of any symmetry or pronounced compositional axis all point to an explicit distancing from Victorian architecture. Webb drew his inspiration from Ruskins ideal of a return to the primitive simplicity of rural construction. The pivot of his design is the corner tower, and the houses L-shaped plan is organized around it.
