Ednaston Manor

Description

Ednaston is based on the original Queen Anne House at Mothecombe, which Lutyens visited in 1910 when Cecil Baring leased it. The house is a good example of Lutyens’s favourite device of ‘instant history’, so that from the north it looks like a gabled vernacular building, of c.1600 modernized a century later. It was originally to have been larger with a billiard room wing projecting to the North West balancing the service wing. Lutyens clearly enjoyed giving the house different moods on each elevation, but every detail is carefully considered, from the capitals to the pilasters carved with the initials of the Player family to the fine long thin red bricks and concealment of the downpipes. It is difficult to look at this house without ‘Neo-Georgian’ preconceptions. It is much less pretentious and more inventive than the majority of the imitations it spawned. (Amery et al., 1981, cat no.174)

By Lutyens for W. G. Player, 1912–13, completed 1919. Described by A.S.G. Butler as ‘perhaps the most perfect country house that Lutyens designed’ and by Lutyens himself as ‘that dear little Queen Anne house’. It is certainly extremely lucid in its planning. The plan is an H. Towards the curved entrance court (W) the two-storey, five-bay brick façade is divided by stone pilasters with monogrammed capitals. Pedimented entrance bay with a swan-neck pediment and cartouche floating over the door. On either side a windowless bay, set back. The garden front to the s has the two projecting wings of the H. Here the pilasters and windows of the recessed centre are offset to each side of the doorway, which is marked by an open pediment enclosing a roundel. The roof lacks the twin dormers of the other sides, creating a monumental, slightly top-heavy look. The E façade to the offices is plainer, the N façade of the servants’ hall appropriately more domestic, with gables. The chimneys are tall and blocky, the windows are all cottagey multi-paned casements, and the brickwork is finely executed in Flemish stretcher bond.

(Drawing room and staircase are in the W wing, the dining room and offices in the E wing, with the hall and servants’ hall between. Only the staircase seems remote because the intended billiard room was not built to its N to balance the NE projection. Upstairs there are vaulted lobbies at the main circulation points. A billiard room of c. 1980 was replaced in 2011–12 by Frances & Michael Edwards.)

The gardens were laid out by William Barron & Son, probably to Lutyens’s design. Chestnut avenues, including the main drive, and on the S side a terrace with two pavilions with Tuscan columns. More terraces and formal gardens to the E. STABLES around an irregular courtyard to the N, converted to apartments in 1983. They are of brick and quite informal, with sweeping tiled roofs and details such as hipped and half-hipped dormers and gables. (Hartwell et al, 2016, p.384)

Bibliography

Amery, C., Richardson, M. and Stamp, G., (1981) Lutyens, the Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944): Hayward Gallery London, 18 November 1981 – 31 January 1982. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.

Hartwell, C., Pevsner, N. and Williamson, E. (2016) Derbyshire. The Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Also Cited In

Amery, C., Richardson, M. and Stamp, G., (1981) Lutyens, the Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944): Hayward Gallery London, 18 November 1981 – 31 January 1982. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.

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

Newman J (2013) Kent: Northeast and East. The Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.

MR WILLIAM, G.P., 1923. COUNTRY HOMES GARDENS OLD & NEW: EDNASTON MANOR DERBYSHIRE. Country Life (Archive : 1901 – 2005), 53(1368), pp. 398-405.

Listing Grade

I, I

Listing Reference

1109745 1109745

Client

William G Player