Painswick House Lodge, gatepiers and flanking dwarf walls, Painswick, Gloucestershire

Summary

A lodge at the entrance to the Painswick House estate, designed in 1824 by George Basevi, FRIBA (1794-1845), in Tudor Gothic style; with contemporary gatepiers and flanking dwarf walls.

Description

A lodge at the entrance to the Painswick House estate, designed in 1824 by George Basevi, FRIBA (1794-1845), in Tudor Gothic style; with contemporary gatepiers and flanking dwarf walls.

MATERIALS
The main range is constructed from limestone ashlar under plain tile roofs, with the rear wing made from squared and coursed limestone. The gatepiers and dwarf walls are limestone ashlar.

PLAN
The lodge is an inverted T-shape on plan, with the main range running east-west and a rear wing running north-south. A dwarf wall extends a short distance south from the south elevation of the lodge to join a gatepier, whose pair stands on the opposite side of the gateway. The dwarf wall then extends a short distance before turning at right angles for a short distance before running southwards to meet a third, matching pier.

EXTERIOR
The three gabled elevations of the main block have moulded raised copings and kneelers, and slim buttresses with offsets. All the windows of the main range have ovolo-moulded mullions and rectangular leaded lights with iron cames. The principal windows each have hood moulds. The bay facing the road to the east has a canted bay window with the Hyett family crest carved in relief to the gable above; the bay to the west is polygonal, with a hipped roof. The elevation to the south has a moulded doorway with hood mould now converted to a window. The small blind gable above has a cross in relief. There is a rectangular ashlar stack to the rear of the main block. The rear wing is constructed from squared and coursed limestone. The elevation to the west has a central moulded entrance doorway flanked by stone three-light diamond-mullioned windows; the northern gable end has been partially rebuilt in the C20. The eastern elevation has C20 timber casement windows and with a small amount of brick patching to the eastern elevation, and brick round-arched basement windows, now largely covered by later infill to raise the ground level. There is a lateral stack similar to that to the main block.

INTERIOR
Internally, the principal rooms are contained within the main block. That to the east has a domed recess within the canted bay window, with moulded ribs. The room has a moulded plaster cornice and ceiling decoration. The stone fireplace has a rectangular opening with delicate moulding. The former entrance doorway has a recessed Tudor arch with flanking panels. The second principal room, to the west, retains a picture rail with moulded decoration. The wing to the rear has entirely modern finishes, though the flagstone floor to the passage between the ranges remains in situ under the raised floor. Under the wing runs a basement, reached by a short flight of stone steps from the interior of the wing. The basement, which is divided into two rooms, is built in stone with some brick, and retains a C19 range and bread oven in situ.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES
A limestone ashlar dwarf WALL with pitched coping extends a short distance south from the south elevation of the lodge to join the one of a pair of square-section GATEPIERS, in ashlar with a moulded cornice to the pyramidal cap, whose pair stands on the opposite side of the gateway. The dwarf wall then extends a short distance before turning at right angles before running southwards to meet a third, matching pier. The dwarf walls are topped by timber railings. The walls and gatepiers are contemporary with the lodge and appear also to have been designed by George Basevi.

History

Painswick House, originally known as Buenos Ayres, was constructed in about 1735 on an estate purchased from the Adey family in 1733 by Charles Hyett, who set about replacing the existing farmhouse with a gentleman's residence. The new house, probably by John Strahan, is a significant early-C18 villa in classical style, showing the influence of James Gibbs. Charles Hyett died in 1738, and the estate passed to his son Benjamin, who laid out alongside it a Rococo garden in the 1740s, possibly designed by Thomas Robins, who depicted the designed landscape in a series of paintings at the same date. The formal garden was populated by a number of classical and Gothic buildings, and the estate included some earlier buildings left from the earlier farmstead. The estate passed to the family of Benjamin Hyett's wife, and in due course was taken over by William Henry Adams, who assumed the surname Hyett in 1813. W H Hyett was made a Fellow of the Royal Society for his contribution to the field of agricultural science, and served as MP for Stroud in 1832-4.

W H Hyett expanded the estate with purchases and exchanges of land surrounding the house, and by 1847 it comprised 471 acres. Hyett enlarged the house in 1827-32, by the addition of east and west wings whose exterior continued the style of the existing house, with Greek Revival interiors. The extensions were designed by Hyett's brother-in-law, the architect George Basevi, FRIBA, FSA (1794-1845), who had studied under Sir John Soane and became one of the leading English architects of the period, undertaking high-profile commissions including the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (designed 1835, built 1837-47, listed Grade I) and the Conservative Club in St James Street, London (1843-5, listed Grade II*). Basevi designed Painswick House Lodge, which was built in 1824 at the main entrance to the estate from Gloucester Road, together with the adjoining dwarf walls and gatepiers. The lodge has undergone relatively little external alteration since its erection: the footprint remains unaltered on the historic Ordnance Survey map series (1883-1924) and has not been changed since. Some alterations were made in the C20, including the conversion of the former doorway in the main block to a window, and the replacement of some of the windows in the rear wing. The height of the rear wing was also raised by a few courses. Internally, the floor level in the rear wing was raised, and the ceilings heightened in the later C20, though the rooms in the main block were unaltered. The building remained in residential use at the time of inspection (2010). Since that time, further alterations have been made to the rear wing .

Reasons for Listing

Painswick House Lodge, built in 1824 at the principal entrance to the Painswick House estate by George Basevi, together with its associated gatepiers and flanking walls, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* the building is an accomplished Tudor Gothic composition by a significant early-C19 architect, who was adding wings to Painswick House at the same time as the erection of this lodge; the lodge is one of his earliest buildings;
* the building is largely unaltered externally, and its principal rooms retain their high-quality if modest decorative scheme;
* the associated gatepiers and flanking walls, apparently also by Basevi, are well-made, in matching style, and mark the principal entrance into the park.

Historic interest:
* the lodge forms part of the C19 development of an important Grade II*-registered landscape laid out in the mid-C18.

Group value:
* the lodge and associated entrance gateway form an ensemble with the Grade I-listed Painswick House, its stables (listed at Grade II*), dovecote (Grade II*) and other garden buildings (listed Grade II) within the registered landscape.

External Links

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