St Leonard's House with dairy and dovecote, Nazeing, Nazeing, Essex

Summary

St Leonard's House in Nazeing, Essex, is a Victorian country house developed from a the surviving core of an earlier C18 vernacular farmhouse.

Description

St Leonard's House in Nazeing, Essex, is a Victorian country house developed from a the surviving core of an earlier C18 vernacular farmhouse.

MATERIALS

The building is constructed of brick, mostly faced in render and has a varied roofscape predominantly of hipped roofs covered in Welsh slate.

PLAN

The building has evolved over time, resulting in an irregular configuration of spaces. There is a small polygonal courtyard at the centre of the plan, and multi-phased ranges at each of the compass points around it. Polite reception rooms were separated from the service areas of the house at ground floor, with lower status areas to the north and west of the central coutyard. Upper storeys contained sleeping acccommodation, with staff quarters in the attics accessed by separate circulation routes.

EXTERIOR

Roughly configured as four sides of a central courtyard, the whole structure is two storeys in height with concealed attics. It is coated in pebbledash render and is roofed in Welsh slate. The east and south elevations feature a widely spaced dentilated cornice.

The principal elevation faces east and incorporates three phases of construction. It is six bays in length: three older bays to the north, a single intermediary height bay joins to the south with a small section of hipped roof, and the final two southern bays are taller still. The fenestration is generally of two-light timber casement windows, though there is a large cruciform window at the first floor of the intermediary bay. The principal entrance is beneath a small occulus to the right of the centre of the elevation. It consists of a wide pedimented timber surround, a central six-panel door, and eight-light windows on each side.

The south elevation is staggered, with an accretion of out-shots and a lean-two workshop at the western end, more prominently there is a three-bay 'ballroom' at the centre, and standing foremost are two bays of principal reception rooms at the eastern end. The eastern bays have large glazed french doors in slightly projecting surrounds, beneath a slatecovered weather detail. At first floor there are two-light casement windows with surviving hoods for awnings. The 'ballroom' is a single-storey, double-height structure with a concealed attic. It has three large sash windows without horns, one pane over another, and above these a recessed band.

The west elevation has no fenestration and has not been intended for display. On the right hand side, the west face of the ballroom features a central projection to accommodate the aedicule within it. On the left hand side the large chimney indicates the kitchens.

The north elevation incorporates a single gabled bay at the left hand side, six bays of two-storey irregularly fenestrated accommodation, partially in unrendered brick, and an additional double-height bay for the kitchens at the right hand side. The kitchen bay features a very large multi-pane sash window. To the right of the centre of the elevation is a projecting glazed wooden porch with a corrugated roof (replacing an earlier pitched roof), leading to a C18 four-panelled door. The windows are a mixture of casements and sashes.

Connected to the north-east corner of the house by a brick wall is a square brick turret historically associated with a pump that may have been housed in the interior space at its base. The upper part, beneath a pyramidal roof, features nest holes for birds and suggests that it was once a dovecote.

To the north-west of the house is a detached brick outbuilding with a hipped roof, covered in pantiles on the north, east and west slopes and slates to the south. There are two arched windows each on the north and south elevations. The entrance is at the east and features a wooden door in an arched surround. Tie bars run through the length of the building and the interior retains no historic fixtures. Its function is unclear but may have been a dairy.

INTERIOR

The ground floor is divided between historic reception rooms and the service areas of the house. The principal entrance at the east of the house leads to a stairhall that stands at the crossroads of these two areas. Moving through the hall to the left leads to reception rooms, terminating in the large dining or ballroom at the south-west corner of the plan. To the right of the entrance hall are rooms belonging to the C18 phase of construction, with lower ceilings, and a scullery, C19 kitchens and (below ground) coal and wine cellars at the north-western end of the building.

The entrance hall has a double-height volume with cornices and a ceiling rose. The floor is paved with limestone laid with slate diamonds at the corners. Opposite the entrance is a segmental archway through which a double or 'imperial' staircase made of pine with mahogany handrails descends into the middle of the room. The reception rooms leading from the entrance hall on the left handside retain cornices, fire surrounds and joinery. Two have shuttered French windows. A vestibule connects the circulation route between these reception rooms and the 'ballroom' (or dining room). The vestibule has a closet on one side, and an access route to the service areas on the other. It is lit by an oval-shaped laylight of obscured glass with a plaster frieze of honeysuckle patterns beneath it. The ballroom is a large double-height volume with three windows on the south wall and a fireplace on the north. There are doors placed symmetrically at the east and west ends of the north wall with plaster panels above; the eastern door is blocked whilst the western door leads to a stone-floored cupboard. At the west end of the room is a large recess or aedicule with a pair of console brackets at the top. There is a honeysuckle frieze and a cornice.

The historic kitchens at the north-western corner of the plan are connected (east) to a former scullery and (south) to a possible laundry or additional kitchen space. The main kitchen area is double height and lit by a large, multi-pane, segmental-headed, sash window. There is a substantial, plainly-detailed fireplace in the western wall. The kitchen provides access to the wine cellar at the west, which retains its stone shelving. The possible laundry is stone-floored and contains a blocked fireplace and the brick support for what may have been a 'copper' or boiler. The laundry gives access to the coal cellar.

At the centre of the ground floor plan is a small courtyard. There are timber screens on the east and north sides, the latter glazed with bullseye glass.

The first floor is principally given to bedroom accommodation, with some inserted C20 bathrooms and WCs. Pine floorboards, four- and six-panelled doors, skirtings, cornices, fire surrounds, windows and shutters have almost all been retained.

The attics contain some areas of staff accommodation, walled and ceiled with matchboard panelling and lath and plaster. At the north-eastern corner of the plan a slim first-floor staircase leads to two cellular attic rooms, one with a blocked window in the gable on the north elevation. A completely independent stair turret leads from service areas beside the ballroom up into its attic and houses a bellcote on its roof. There are four rooms at this upper level, one partially glazed internally suggesting its function may have been an office.

Throughout, the interior is a consistently high degree of surviving historic joinery from the C18 and C19, including six-panelled and four-panelled doors, architraves, windows (sash and casement), shutters, skirtings, staircases and cupboards. Flooring is generally of pine boards, though the service areas at ground floor feature stone flags.

History

St Leonard's House is a multi-phase dwelling that appears to have begun as a vernacular farmhouse and undergone several subsequent phases of expansion to incorporate polite architectural additions. It is shown as an L-shaped building on the 1777 Rocque map of Essex, though the oldest parts of the structure are likely to pre-date that.

Parts of the north and east ranges of the house retain the proportions and some internal detailing of an C18 vernacular building, with lower ceilings, L-shaped hinges on some doors and one surviving chamfered beam. The house was associated with the Bury family from the late C18, a gentry family of sufficient means to describe St Leonard's as the family 'seat' by the ninth edition of Burke's 'Landed Gentry' (1898).

A major period of development at the house seems to have taken place in the middle of the C19, at some point after 1848. As part of this phase of alteration the principal elevation was re-oriented from the north to the east and a series of extensions were made to the building with higher ceilings and larger windows. This change in character has been cleverly addressed by the creation of a stair hall with an 'imperial' flight of steps seemingly branching into two symetrical flights, but in fact landing at differing heights. A ballroom (or large dining room) was added to the western part of the building, and a correspondingly large kitchen attached to the north-west. These additions completed the enclosure of a small yard at the centre of the building's plan.

The late C19 saw St Leonard's established as a significant country house. There were a large number of staff living on site, with accommodation provided in the attics and a bell in a wooden turret at the top of a servants' stair to co-ordinate their movements. The trappings of a gentry household were appended to the building, including a dovecote at the north-eastern corner, and what was probably an ornamental dairy near the kitchen (today called the chapel). Beyond the assessed area to the north of the house was, historically, a substantial farmyard, an orchard and a walled garden. By 1915 there was a lodge house at the end of the driveway.

Reasons for Listing

St Leonard's House with its dairy and dovecote, a Victorian country house developed from the surviving core of an earlier C18 vernacular farmhouse, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* For the architectural quality of the C19 additions to the house, notably the ballroom (or large dining room) and the principal stairhall;
* For the survival of the plan form which historically separated high and low status functions;
* For the quality of the craftsmanship, especially the surviving joinery.

Historic interest:

* As a C19 country house developed from the surviving core of a C18 vernacular farmhouse and the legibility of the building's evolution;
* For the high degree of survival in the building's historic fabric.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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