Description

SU 77 NE
1209/10/10017
06.05.97

EYE AND DUNSDEN
SONNING EYE
Eyot House

II*

House. 1902, by Halsey Ricardo, for Reginald Blunt, general manager of De Morgan Pottery. Pebbledash brick. Clay plain tile roof with gabled and hipped ends, one gable end weatherboarded; shaped rafter ends exposed under deep eaves. Pebbledash axial and gable end stacks with brick caps and clay pots. STYLE: Domestic Revival. PLAN: L-shaped on plan with service wing on left [N] and entrance porch in the angle. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys. Asymmetrical elevations. NW front has small single-storey wing on right and gable-ended service wing projecting on left with lean-to porch in the angle with simple doorway with cambered tile arch and plank door with stained glass light. The casement windows have glazing bars, brick cills and tiled cambered arches or straight heads; tall narrow windows on the NW gable end, wider 2,3 or 4-light windows elsewhere, first floor tucked under the eaves. The SE garden front has two gables, the left jettied out over projecting bay and on right the wing has hipped roof with very deep overhang over bow window; French casement to left with cambered arch and glazed double doors, and with loggia on right corner with coved canopy over panel of William De Morgan tiles depicting a classical scene with sailing ships and townscape behind; the loggia continues at an angle as a pergola with stone columns, at the back of which is a range of brick outhouses facing the kitchen garden. The NE elevation of the service wing has similar windows, first floor right near corner, ground floor left of centre with small terracotta grille with interlacing; porch to right with cambered canopy backing on to outhouse. INTERIOR: Entrance leads into vestibule and thence into cross-passage. Wing on left of entrance contains service rooms and dining room. To right of entrance, passage leads to a small and a large sitting room (with study off). Stair rises above entrance. On 1st floor continuous corridor along front of house gives access to bathroom (above kitchen)and 6 bedrooms. Original joinery throughout, including ledged board doors with door furniture; picture rails; kitchen dresser and cupboard (re-located); staircase with corniced board dado and rectilinear open-work balustrade; panelled wall cupboards and window seats to 1st-floor corridor. Original chimneypieces, those to principal rooms (including 4 bedrooms and cross-passage) of polished fossil stone with moulded surrounds framing Delft tiles; that in large sitting-room of yellow brick with corbelled stone mantel-piece and over-mantel of William De Morgan tiles. Original bathroom retains tiled floor and walls and original bath.

SOURCES

7447 Edwardian Architecture: A Bibliographical Dictionary (A Stuart Gray), 1985, Page(s) 308

Listing NGR: SU7507075974

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17549219

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)