Fishers Hill

Description

In 1897, Lutyens had married Lady Emily Lytton, whose older sister Betty had married Gerald Balfour, President of the Board of Trade, Privy Councillor, MP. In 1900, Lutyens designed a house for the Balfours, called Fisher’s Hill and Jekyll laid out the garden. It is an asymmetrical L shaped plan with courtyard in re-entrant angle. To the south the garden drops one storey and the garden front has 2 recessed bays, 3 storey angle bay to left end with pergola and steps to garden. In 1947, it was divided into 4 houses. (Contributor: Paul Waite)

Further on, KILMORIE, again by Field, after 1913. Very red brick and deep tile roof that runs in a catslide over the E end. The motifs are turning Georgian. The house stands at the head of a drive to FISHERS HILL of 1900–1 by Lutyens, for Gerald Balfour, who commissioned it after seeing Tigbourne Court. Entirely of brick, a rarity in Lutyens’s early houses, deep brown tile roof with dormers. L-plan N front, with the entrance near the re-entrant angle in a gabled tower backed by a double chimney. Tunnel porch with bench, and door itself in a Venetian window-type surround with glazed margins. The daring garden (S) elevation of the main range is similar to the Red House, Godalming (p. 367), three storeys high and sheer, with shallow canted bays on the front and sides under a hipped roof. The middle storey (ground floor) stressed by deeper windows, the top windows hard under the eaves. The ratio of sheer wall to window is a foretaste of Castle Drogo (Devon) and other houses (as well as blocks of flats a generation later). A pergola, projecting S, hides the division between this and the two-storey parts on the higher ground facing a paved terrace. This side is picturesquely composed, with a double-diamond chimney dividing the face of a gable-end with a recess on one side and loggia on the other opening from the entrance hall. The service end (E) is like a two-storey cottage in itself, with path to an entrance between Neo-Tudor gabled wings. The interior details are relatively subdued classical. The stair rising in several low flights around a solid square newel, however, is typical of Lutyens’s early interest in spatial effects and the back stair has again one of his attractive lattice-pattern balustrades.

FISHERS HILL COTTAGE, also by Lutyens, 1907, is smaller and simpler, the upper floor contained within the pitched roof. (O’Brien et al., 2022, p.763)

Bibliography

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

Also Cited In

Gradidge, R. (1982) Edwin Lutyens: Architect Laureate. London: Allen & Unwin.

Weaver, L. (1913) Houses and Gardens by E L Lutyens. London: Country Life.

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

Listing Grade

II

Listing Reference

1044697

Client

Rt Hon Gerald Balfour, MP