St Martha's Priory Including the Garage Building, Enclosed Courtyards with Cob Walls and Gateways, Paved Terrace, Retaining Wall and Flight of Garden Steps, Guildford, Surrey

Description

GUILDFORD

1688/0/10041 HALF PENNY LANE
14-AUG-09 Chilworth
St Martha's Priory including the garag
e building, enclosed courtyards with c
ob walls and gateways, paved terrace,
retaining wall and flight of garden st
eps

GV II
House, designed as a pavilion, possibly intended as a lodge to a larger building; garage; attached garden walls enclosing a paved terrace and courtyard gardens, and flight of garden steps.1932 by AC Burlingham for Captain Hugh Deacon in an inter-war Arts and Crafts inspired vernacular revival manner.
Materials: Pegged timber frame, rendered and set over a nine-inch brick core, on a tall brick plinth; thatched roofs, brick stacks. Thatched cob garden walls, stone flag paving.

HOUSE:

Plan: The house is cruciform in plan and symmetrical externally on north-south and east-west axes. A tall central brick stack has a chamfered fillet on each face. It is of one-and-a-half storeys with a tall jettied gable supported on brackets with carved ends on the north elevation and lower east, and west and south elevation gabled bays.

Exterior: The main entrance is on the north. The front door has moulded stiles and rails and a shaped head. To the right is an iron letter box with a bell suspended from it. The south entrance has a pair of part-glazed doors. Windows are metal-framed casements with rectangular leaded lights set symmetrically either side of the entrances. Upper floor windows are two- or three-light mullions, similarly glazed.

Interior: A passage with a glazed overlight leads to a large open hall, labelled sitting room on Burlingham's plans, which has an open truss roof, and a small balustraded gallery in the gable over the entrance to the garden. The fireplace has a large four-centre arched stone chimneypiece with carved spandrels, is lined in brick set diagonally and has a cast iron fireback. The space occupied by a bedroom to the east and formerly separate from the sitting room is incorporated in the room. To the west a bathroom has black and white inter-war wall tiles. The dining room, to the west of the front door, was until recently fully panelled with a fluted cornice and has doors panelled similarly. Stairs have square newels and balusters.

GARAGE:

Plan: The garage building is rectangular on plan and of one and a half storeys but set into the side of the hill giving a lower level garden room at the southern end. The garage is at the northern end with a flat above it reached by stairs behind the entrance on the west elevation. Stairs behind the garden room rise to bedrooms and a bathroom.

Exterior: It is similarly treated to the house but with some brick nogging on the south and west elevations. A central ridge stack is similar to that on the main house. The east elevation has a verandah set back between outer bays, with doors at either end with moulded muntins. Two eyebrow dormers have two-light metal framed casements with rectangular leaded lights. The garage has a horizontal sliding panelled door jointed in sections, and on runners.

Interior: The garden room was, until recently, panelled like the dining room and has moulded encased beams. The fireplace has also been removed. The hall and stairwell are panelled, the panelling possibly introduced for elsewhere, the stairs have robust square newels with carved finials and splat balusters.The upper floor bathroom is tiled, like that in the main house. Outbuildings and green houses attached to the west of the building are not of special interest.

GARDEN WALLS:

The buildings are linked by thatched cob walls which form courtyard gardens to the east and west of the house. Doorways with moulded posts and doors with moulded muntins lead from the drive to the courtyards which have low stone retaining walls and stone flag paving. The house is set on a paved terrace behind a stone retaining wall, with a central flight of semicircular stone steps descending to the field below.

HISTORY
St Martha's Priory was built in1932 by architect AC Burlingham FRIBA for Captain Hugh Deacon of Deacon's bank Guildford. The house is marked on the 1935 OS map as St Martha's Priory Lodge implying that it was the precursor to a larger building, which was intended to be built to the east of it at the end of the drive which is also shown on the map. While Burlingham's drawings for a `lodge and garage' at St Martha's Priory survive there does not appear to be a record of a larger house, suggesting that no more was developed, which may help to explain anomalies between the drawings and the extant buildings which were adapted either as they were built or shortly afterwards.

AC Burlingham (1885-1963) trained at the Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts which was strongly influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement. He moved to Surrey in 1909, and to Guildford in 1911 where he continued to emulate the work of the highly influential Surrey Arts and Crafts, Vernacular Revival architects such as Baillie Scott. He designed at least seventy houses, shops and a factory in the area, his most notable work being Abbotswood,Guildford, a suburban development of Arts and Crafts inspired houses laid out in Garden City manner from 1912 onwards. This was followed by smaller estates such as the Orchard Estate Burpham in 1926 and The Merrow Downs Estate in 1927 and other individual houses in the Guildford area. He was at his most prolific in the inter-war period when his work illustrates the shift seen nationally from true Arts and Crafts to Tudor revival, and commonly seen in Surrey.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
St Martha's Priory including the garage, enclosed courtyards with cob walls and gateways, paved terrace, retaining wall and flight of garden steps are listed for the following principal reasons:
* They form a strong group, with the lodge and garage linked by enclosed courtyards designed to fit into the Surrey landscape.
* AC Burlingham was a notable local architect inspired by the highly influential Surrey Arts and Crafts tradition.
* The buildings are also strong exemplars of the Tudor Revival of the inter-war period.
* The strong attention given to the garage is of interest in the development of the motor car in the inter-war years.

SOURCES
Michael Drakeford, A History of Abbotswood, 2008
Roderick Gradidge, The Surrey Style, 1991
Gavin Stamp, Neo-Tudor and its Enemies, Architectural History, Vol 49, 2006, pp 1-33

Drawings: Lodge and garage for Captain Hugh Deacon, AC Burlingham, April 1932, Surrey History Centre, 3479H

Reasons for Listing

St Martha's Priory including the garage, enclosed courtyards with cob walls and gateways, paved terrace, retaining wall and flight of garden steps are designated for the following principal reasons:
* They form a strong group, with the lodge and garage linked by enclosed courtyards designed to fit into the Surrey landscape.
* AC Burlingham was a notable local architect inspired by the highly influential Surrey Arts and Crafts tradition.
* The buildings are also strong exemplars of the Tudor Revival of the inter-war period.
* The strong attention given to the garage is of interest in the development of the motor car in the inter-war years.

External Links

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