Greywalls

Description

Greywalls shows Lutyens’s developing geometrical interests. The main house is an H-shaped block set behind a concave symmetrical front. The house is enclosed, as the plan shows, by intricately planned courts formed by straight and semi-circular walls, Lutyens’s finest exercise in extending the planning of the house into the garden. The walls of the entrance court are symmetrically balanced about a diagonal axis centred on the front door. The style is Scottish vernacular, the materials cream rubble, often garreted with red tiles and grey Dutch pantiles. The bothies were added by Lutyens in 1909 for the new owner William James. (Amery et al., 1981, cat no.133)

The approach from the south-west on the diagonal is separated and planned so as not to compromise the southerly orientation of a basically H-shaped house. A curved screen wall between two pylon-like chimney-stacks allows this diagonal drive to terminate at one corner of the building from which pavilions and garden walls in the same cream-coursed rubble walls extend the symmetrical composition of this screen to include the whole entry court. Their plan makes these walls appear a series of wings, like theatrical flats, stepping out in support of the house to locate the entrance lodges, garage buildings and gardener’s cottage. The contrast of planted and open courts exaggerates their scale and the combination of diagonal and orthogonal routes with curved garden walls gives the visitor a sense of continuous discovery as unexpected relationships are revealed.

Within the rubble walls, curved pieces of grey pantile galletted with dots of red tile decorate the window lintels. These same Dutch pantiles are used for the roof, as a coping to the garden wall and atop the chimney-stacks. (Inskip, 1979, p.40)

Sir Edwin Lutyens, 1901. 2-storey Arts and Crafts house formed of 2 interlocking ground plans: L-plan to W with curved inner angle, linking with U-plan to E, with attic floor…

…Commissioned 1901 by Sir Alfred Lyttleton MP for whom Lutyens later built another house in Kent. Bought by William James in 1905, for whom Lutyens later designed Monkton, West Sussex. Arts and Crafts observance of local material and character with Edwardian Baroque touch in doorway, lantern and E lodge. Referred to as a ‘golf box’. Lyttleton requested large number of bedrooms, hence formal rooms are minimal. Entrance inscription, ‘Ung Dieu, Ung Roy’ was Lyttleton’s family motto. Gardens give instance of later partnership with Jekyll. Use of Lorimer for additions appropriate as he has been dubbed the Scottish Lutyens. (Historic Environment Scotland, LB1337)

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.

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

Historic Environment Scotland. GULLANE, DUNCUR ROAD, GREYWALLS WITH LODGES, GARDEN WALLS, GATEWAY AND GATEPIERS. [Online] Available from: http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/LB1337

L, W., 1911. COUNTRY HOMES GARDENS OLD & NEW: GREY WALLS, GULLANE, A RESIDENCE OF MR. WILLIAM JAMES. Country Life (Archive : 1901 – 2005), 30(766), pp. 374-380.

Also Cited In

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

Aslet, C. (1982) The Last Country Houses. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Butler, A., 1950. The architecture of Sir Edwin Lutyens: the Lutyens memorial series. Vol 1: Country Houses, Country Life: London and Scibners: New York.

Listing Grade

Historic Environment Scotland Cat A

Listing Reference

LB1337

Client

Rt Hon Alfred Lyttleton