Sullingstead

Description

At Sullingstead Lutyens combined a range of features drawn from local Surrey buildings and grouped them in the picturesque manner of Ernest George’s watercolour tradition. But, unrestrained by Miss Jekyll’s strictures of utilitarianism, there is great variety of wall projections and surfaces and invention, although the house is ‘quieter’ than the slightly later and more wilful group: Fulbrook, Berrydown, The Pleasaunce; Roseneath, and Verangeville. The entrance, defined by three gables, is colourfully half-timbered; a Tudor arch leads into an open vestibule, a precursor of Homewood’s. The main block is tile-hung and faces South onto a garden sloping away down a hillside. There are details that are seen later: the windows wrapped around corners (Berrydown, The Pleasaunce); the triple-flued chimneys (Berrydown, Barton St. Mary); and the foot of the tile-hanging (Fulbrook). Inside, the staircase newel is a precursor of many designs for memorials and war stones in the 1920s and ‘30s. A Georgian Music Room was added to the South West corner in 1903. (Amery et al., 1981, cat no.55)

On the ridge SW above Winkworth Farm is a whole neighbourhood of wealthy houses on private roads. SULLINGSTEAD is of 1896–7 by Lutyens, exactly contemporary with Munstead Wood (p. 534). His client was Charles Archer Cook, a lawyer. To the garden long, low and red tile-hung, with a gabled cross-wing to the l. but a long hip to the r. and a lower kitchen wing set beyond in a smooth horizontal transition. On the entrance side, three gables set into the slope of the roof above a pegged timber-framed front with close studding and wavy bracing containing the undemonstrative Tudor-arched entrance. Lutyens’s confidence of handling timberwork in an authentic way has here advanced far beyond his early effort at Munstead Corner (p. 534). Clever drawing room or music room added in 1903, Neo-Georgian but of rustic character. Brick ground floor with segmental-headed windows and above a modillion cornice a frieze-like section of weatherboarding that round the corner expands to cover conjoined gables embracing a fat square chimney. This room stands slightly forward of the main house at its SW corner and on the E side facing the terrace Lutyens has set a niche of tile and stone chequerboard for sculpture. Carefully restored in 2002–9 by Frances & Michael Edwards, who re-created the free-standing Tuscan-columned loggia through which the approach descends by dog-legs of steps to the N entrance. They also reinstated the double chimney to the kitchen wing and much of the interior, notably the original main stair. Also by Edwards, the oak-framed POOL HOUSE in the manner of a large Surrey barn, opening on to an axial canal. (O’Brien et al., 2022, p.439)

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.

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.

SULLINGSTEAD,… HASCOMBE, SURREY. 1912. Country Life (Archive : 1901 – 2005), 31(800), pp. axxvii, axxviii, 28, 30, 32.

Listing Grade

II

Listing Reference

1240142

Client

C A Crook