Eaton Hall

Description

Pair of Folding Gates, circa 1896, attributed to Edwin Lutyens, for 1st Duke of Westminster. The Piers are later. Black wrought iron gates and screens and stone piers. The vertical rails and scrollwork of the gates represent formalised trees. Narrow, taller, sidescreens of scrollwork. Square rusticated stone piers with heads of putti on inner faces. There appear to have been trimmed yew hedges to each side of the gate screens in 1901, but no piers. Country Life April 20th 1901 (photograph). (Historic England, list entry 1138406)

The prestigious commission from the Duke of Westminster to design gardens and garden buildings at Eaton Hall probably came to Lutyens through Miss Jekyll, who had been given the job in the 1870s of overseeing the interior furnishings of the Waterhouse building. She did not, however, collaborate with him on the planting of this formal Italian garden layout on the terraces on the east side of the house – a formality which is matched by this finely detailed presentation design. Early Country Life photographs from 1901 of the completed scheme show that the design was not executed. (Richardson, 1994, p.41)

Bibliography

Historic England. Pair of Folding Gates with screens and piers at south end of southern gardens. [Online] Available from: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1138406

Richardson, M. (1994) Sketches by Edwin Lutyens: Drawings from the Collection of Royal INsistute of British Architects (RIBA Drawings Monographs No. 1). London: Wiley.

Also Cited In

Bradley S & Pevsner N (2014) Cambridgeshire. The Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Listing Grade

II

Listing Reference

1138406

Client

Duke of Westminster