Main Lodge and Gates to Minley Manor, Minley, Hampshire

Summary

Main lodge, gate piers and walls to Minley Manor, 1885-88 by George Devey for BW Currie.

Description

Main lodge, gate piers and walls to Minley Manor, 1885-88 by George Devey for BW Currie.

MATERIALS: red brick, predominantly in English bond, with diaper work, limestone dressings and a slate roof.

PLAN: the lodge and gates are positioned on an axis with the arched entrance at Arch Cottage (qv) and the gates north of the orangery.

The walls bound part of the Minley Manor estate on Minley Road. The lodge is built into the wall on the north side of the gate. It has a two-storey main range perpendicular to the road with single-storey accommodation to the north and south. A screen wall returns from the lodge to the stables to the west.

EXTERIOR: the boundary walls open to form an entrance marked by square-section piers with stone bases and caps, one of which retains a stone heraldic beast. The walls are enriched with diaper work and a brick dentil course beneath shaped stone copings. Walls are ramped between the outer and inner piers.

From the roadside the first floor gable end of the lodge rises above the wall, which forms its north-east elevation. There are mullioned windows in the wall with leaded glass, and in the first floor a two-light stone mullioned window in an aedicular architrave with pilasters and a semi-circular pediment surmounted by finials. The gable has a tall parapet with stone copings with heavy crockets and a ball finial at the apex.

From within the manor grounds the single-storey parts of the lodge are visible; these have the same detailing as the walls, with dentilled eaves and a coped parapet. Windows are one, two or three-light casements in chamfered stone mullioned architraves with projecting moulded cills. The west gable has a pedimented two-light window, as on the roadside elevation. A single-storey porch projects to the south; the front door is recessed behind an elliptical arched architrave of chamfered limestone. Rear doorways have gauged brick arches.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

History

In 1855 the manor of Minley was bought by Raikes Currie (1801-1881), a wealthy banker and Liberal politician. He immediately commissioned Henry Clutton to build a country house on the site.

Clutton (1819-1893) began his career under Edward Blore and toured Italy, France, Belgium and Germany before beginning his own practice in the mid-1840s. His design for Minley (NHLE 1258061) was initially modelled on the chateau at Blois and was at the time one of the first C19 country houses to be built in England in the French Renaissance manner, though under the influence of the English Gothic Revival. Typical of the period, Clutton rejected uniformity and symmetry, in favour of ordered but irregular elevations which, later augmented by Devey's alterations, were noted by Girouard for their ‘aggressive anarchy’. Clutton designed further buildings on the estate, including the Church of St Andrew (NHLE 1258200) and a number of lodges, before his eyesight failed and he ended his practice.

When Raikes Currie died in 1881 the estate was passed to his son Bertram Wodehouse Currie (1827-1896) who did not favour Clutton’s design and in 1885 employed George Devey (1820-1886) to make extensive alterations to the house and grounds. Devey, an architect and painter began his own practice in 1846; he became a fellow of the RIBA in 1856 and by the mid-1860s had established a busy country house practice. He worked for Bertram Currie in the 1870s at Coombe Warren, Surrey (NHLE 1080098) and at Minley remodelled the external elevations as well as interior spaces. To the grounds he added the main lodge and gates (NHLE 1092280), Arch Cottage and entrance arch to the forecourt (NHLE 1421387), an orangery and loggia (NHLE 1339884), and a replacement stable block (NHLE 1258067). Devey died the following year and his designs were executed by his chief draughtsman and successor, Arthur Castings (1853-1913).

The entire estate was sold to the Army in 1936. The lodge is used as staff accommodation and has been little altered. The lodge and walls form a picturesque group and share architectural details with the adjacent stables.

Reasons for Listing

The main lodge, gate piers and flanking walls to Minley Manor, 1885-88 by George Devey for BW Currie, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: a striking group, built at the principal entrance to the manor, intended to convey the grandeur of the manor within;
* Architectural detail: the lodge incorporates motifs that recur in Devey's designs for the estate and take cues from Clutton’s design for the house;
* Planning: the main gates lie on an axis with other buildings designed and laid out by Devey in his main phase of redevelopment and planning of the east drive, providing a visual progression to the house, and form a picturesque group with the adjacent stables and Orchard Cottage;
* Historic interest: the principal mansion, together with the other associated buildings and landscape illustrate the evolution of a mid-C19 to early C20 landed estate that comprises buildings by two significant and influential C19 architects, Clutton and Devey, and latterly Devey’s draughtsman Castings, laid out in collaboration with a major horticulturalist;
* Group value: Minley Manor exemplifies a landed estate set in a registered designed landscape, marked by a number of listed buildings of note which together form an exceptional and very complete group.

External Links

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