The Red House (now Corpus Domini convent)

Description

The seeds of this idea of the house’s alliance with its immediate site and the distancing of the surroundings are found in Lutyens’ early works. The sketch for a house at Effingham shows the wings common with the garden walls incorporating the court with the house and excluding the outside world. (Inskip, 1986 p.21)

E of the cross-roads, the RED HOUSE, designed by Lutyens in 1893 for Gertrude Jekyll’s close friend Susan Muir-Mackenzie. In this can be seen the origin of that Tudor mode of his which eventually culminated in Castle Drogo. Red brick with stone dressings to horizontal mullioned windows. Tower-like wing to the r. of the entrance, with tile-hung gable recessed above a curve of tile, the one clumsy effect; shorter wing to the l. also tile-hung in the kneelered gable. Big canted bay on the E side and at the other end a large chimney anchors a hip-roofed service room on the side to the rear service wing under a catslide roof. The windows under wide and shallow segmental arches with tile inserts are very characteristic of early Lutyens. Attached to the SW corner a room with gableted roof. (O’Brien et al., 2022, p.263)

Bibliography

Inskip, P. (1986) Edwin Lutyens: Architectural Monographs 6. 2nd edn. London: Academy Editions.

O’Brien, C., Nairn, I. and Cherry, B. (2022) Surrey. Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Also Cited In

Nairn, I., Pevsner, N. (1971) Surrey (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England). 2nd edn. Yale University Press.

Listing Grade

II

Listing Reference

1294784

Client

Miss Susan Muir-Mackenzie