Witwood
Witwood (1897–8), a small Lutyens house in Park Street for Major Crawford, has an unusual white‑brick, formally symmetrical front with a concave, semicircular recess and central gablet flanked by hipped loggias, contrasting with a more asymmetrical, tile‑hung rear and recalling the work of E. S. Prior.
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Description
1898 by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Whitewashed brick with plain tiled roof. One storey and attic in centre gable and end gables; square brick stacks to rear of ridge left and right of centre. Concave centre with roof extending down over single storey projecting ends. 2 camber head 8 pane casement windows to centre of first floor. Central half glazed door with margin light in recessed porch behind projecting curved flat hood. Screen walls to ends under hipped roofs with arched entrances to centre. Casement windows to return fronts, parallel range and wing at right angles to rear. (Historic England, list entry 1188121)
The suburban area S of the town centre is still extensively wooded and with thick hedges of rhododendron and laurel to preserve each house from its neighbour. WITWOOD, in Park Street, about 100 yds S of the railway bridge, is a small but interesting house by Lutyens, 1897–8 for a Major Crawford. Formal, symmetrical but wholly unconventional front of white-painted brick with concave centre cutting back into the red tile roof to produce a wide semicircle topped by a small centre gablet and the entrance recessed below a deep semicircular hood. No windows except in the centre gablet. Flanking hip-roofed loggias with arches to the garden; the back asymmetrical and tile-hung. It is more like a house by E.S. Prior than Lutyens. (O’Brien et al., 2022, p.170)
Bibliography
Historic England. Witwood. [Online] Available from: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1188121
O’Brien, C., Nairn, I. and Cherry, B. (2022) Surrey. Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.,
