Lutyens Houses on the Market
Richard Page’s regular property column
Over the summer, the property market proved remarkably resilient in the face of an increasingly challenging economic and political environment. This has chiefly been driven by a lack of fresh properties becoming available and the continuation of historically low interest rates.
A significant sale arranged recently is that of historic Temple Dinsley in Hertfordshire (formerly home to The Princess Helena College), which was substantially remodelled and enlarged by Edwin Lutyens for Herbert Fenwick from 1908 to 1911. The Grade II*-listed, 69,000-sq ft property, set within grounds of 84 acres, had a guide price of £8m through Savills.
Lutyens’s Grade II-listed house, Marvells at Five Ashes, in East Sussex has been sold. It was designed in the late 1920s for American artist and illustrator George Wolfe Plank, chiefly remembered for his long-term association with Vogue magazine. The house, in the Georgian manner with red-brick elevations under a hipped tiled roof, was later extended and includes over 3,000 sq ft of accommodation standing in grounds of eight acres with sweeping views of open countryside. It was available through Savills with a guide price of £1.75m.
Millmead, Bramley, Surrey
In Bramley, an absolute gem has come to the market for the first time in 50 years. Millmead was a speculative commission from Gertrude Jekyll in 1904 for a house “not only worthy of the pretty site but also the best small house in the whole neighbourhood”. Lutyens handled the design with aplomb, providing a delightful house of Bargate stone with a perfect mix of his vernacular and early Georgian Classical styles, standing in a notable garden by Jekyll.
Henry Avray Tipping, Architectural Editor of Country Life, praised Lutyens for “showing us how perfect a thing a little country house on a tiny plot of ground can be made and transformed into an earthly paradise”. More praise came from architect Harold Falkner: “I have never seen anything before, nor since as perfectly developed, so exquisite in every detail. [The garden] in colour, texture, form, background, setting, smell, association… it was perfect. It was to me the work of a fairy or wizard.” The house and garden have three separate Grade II listings, one of which is for the summerhouse, a replica of which stands in the walled garden of Godalming Museum.
Now in need of sensitive modernisation, the accommodation extends to 4,891sq ft and includes four bedrooms, two bathrooms, entrance hall, drawing room, dining room, kitchen, utility, pantry, boot room and cellar. There is a downstairs bedroom and shower room and an additional upstairs kitchen. The gardens extend to 1.1 acres and include garden buildings and a garage. Sale agreed through Knight Frank. The guide price was £2.25m.
Cottage at Milton Abbot, Devon
This Grade II-listed cottage, formerly a village shop, is for sale. It was part of a group of new estate cottages that Lutyens designed for the Duke of Bedford in 1909. Adjacent to a churchyard and surrounded by countryside, this characterful property includes the original bay-fronted shop window sitting on turned wooden balusters, parquet flooring and original windows and doors. The accommodation extends to 1,721sq ft over three floors and includes three bedrooms, a bathroom, shower room, sitting room, dining room, kitchen, utility room and garden.
Sale agreed through Miller Town & Country. The guide price was £395,000
Munstead Wood and Munstead Place, Busbridge, Surrey
Perhaps the biggest news so far this year is Munstead Wood – the house he designed for Gertrude Jekyll – coming up for sale. Jekyll moved from Wargrave in Berkshire to Munstead House with her mother in 1876. A few years later she bought 15 acres of heath and woodland opposite as the location for her own house and garden. While looking for the right architect to design the house, she began to lay out the garden with grass walks cut and planted among holly, birch, chestnut and pine.
In 1889, Harry Mangles of Thursley, a friend and fellow gardener, introduced Jekyll to the young Edwin “Ned” Lutyens who was building a cottage for him. Jekyll realised she had met a kindred spirit – both shared an appreciation of honest materials and craftsmanship – and she soon invited him to Munstead Wood. The partnership they were to form had a huge impact on Lutyens’s future and lasted until her death in 1932. A Lutyens house with a Jekyll garden became, and remains, a byword for the best of the best.
In 1896, after a series of collaborations between them, work began on the house at Munstead Wood. In Jekyll’s words, Lutyens had “conceived the house in exactly such a form as I had desired, but could not have described. The house is not in any way a copy of any old building, though it embodies the general characteristics of the older structures in the district. In some mysterious way it is imbued with an expression of cheerful, kindly welcome, of restfulness to mind and body, of abounding satisfaction to eye and brain”.
The house is a reinterpretation of a small Tudor manor house built in the local vernacular style, touched with Lutyens’s magic. With Bargate stone elevations, oak casement windows, a clay-tile roof and tall brick chimneys, the house is built on a U-plan around a court. The south elevation is dominated by two large gables. Sturdy timbers inside were all made of local oak, the first-floor 60-ft gallery being a notable example. Similar ones appeared in numerous later Lutyens houses.
The garden is fully described in Jekyll’s book Gardens for Small Country Houses of 1912, in which she writes that all parts are handled “on their individual merits and the whole afterwards reconciled as might most suitably be contrived”. The woodland garden, spring garden, hidden garden, nut walk and 200-ft herbaceous border were notable features. The house and garden are both Grade I-listed. The garden was lovingly restored by its owners, Lady Marjorie Clark and her husband, Bob (see the obituary of Lady Clark on page 7).
Available through Knight Frank. Guide price: £5.25m
Munstead Place, Busbridge, Surrey
Across the road, Munstead Place has recently come to the market. Originally known as Munstead Corner, this is one of Lutyens’s earliest complete houses, finished in 1892. The elevations are of Bargate stone, while the entrance front has a distinctive triple gable with vertical half-timbering under a tiled roof with tall brick chimney stacks. Extensively refurbished over the last 10 years, the 8,000-sq ft property includes six bedrooms, four bathrooms, five reception rooms, a large kitchen/family room, a two-bed flat and wine cellar. The grounds, of just under eight acres, include an outdoor kitchen and dining area under the pergola. There is a hard tennis court and planning permission for a swimming pool. The house, with original garden planting attributed to Jekyll, is Grade II-listed.
Available through Savills. Guide price: £9m.
Apartment in Roehampton House, Putney, Greater London
A ground-floor apartment in the Grade I listed Roehampton House in Southwest London is for sale. The original, seven-bay house, built to the designs of Thomas Archer, a leading architect of the English Baroque style, was completed in 1712. In 1910, financier Arthur Grenfell – son-in-law of Earl Grey, Governor General of Canada – who had made a fortune banking in Canada, engaged Lutyens to make significant additions. He substantially expanded the house in a seamless continuation of the Archer style to the north and south wings, with the further addition of pavilion service wings to the entrance. In 1915, the property was requisitioned by the War Office, becoming Queen Mary’s hospital for the rehabilitation of amputees. The hospital occupied the site until 2006 when it moved to more modern premises next door. Roehampton House was then acquired by the developer Berkeley Group Holdings, which restored it and created 24 apartments in it. This apartment occupies what was the main kitchen in one of Lutyens’s service wings; the interior retains its top-lit octagonal lantern skylight. The 2,483-sq ft accommodation includes four bedrooms, four bathrooms, an entrance hall, reception room, kitchen-cum-dining room and utility room. There are two offstreet parking spaces (one underground) and use of the communal gardens.
Available through Hamptons. Guide price: £1,250,000.
Mesnil Warren, Newmarket, Suffolk
Mesnil Warren, a former racing lodge with sweeping views over Newmarket Heath, is for sale. The 19th-century house was acquired in 1908 by Lord Derby’s racehorse trainer, the Hon George Lambton (husband of Cicely Horner of Mells Manor House, Somerset). It is said that Lambton bet so heavily on his 1924 Derby entrant, Sansovino, that the huge payout when the horse won enabled him to extend his house substantially and appoint Lutyens to draw up the plans. Lutyens’s new north wing – with mellow red-brick elevations under a hipped-tile roof with deep cornice and dormers – was built on a U-plan over three storeys the following year.
The Lambton family sold the house in 2018 and since then the 10,000-sq ft interior has been updated and redecorated. It contains eight bedrooms, two dressing rooms, five bathrooms, a hall, five reception rooms, bar, kitchencum-breakfast room, pantry, larder, utility room, boot room, gym and a self-contained two-bed flat. It also has a wine cellar, garage and workshop. The gardens extend to just under 2.5 acres and include a hard tennis court. The house is not listed, which is unusual for a building incorporating a large element of Lutyens’s work.
Available through Savills. Guide price: £2,750,000.
Two properties in a former coach house and clockhouse at Great Maytham Hall, Rolvenden, Kent
Two interesting properties at the Grade II*-listed Great Maytham Hall are for sale. An 18th-century house, Maytham Hall was largely rebuilt by Lutyens in his “Wrenaissance” style for Liberal MP Harold Tennant in 1909. Its walled garden was the inspiration for Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book, The Secret Garden.
One property is a 1,694-sq ft, converted coach house with three bedrooms, a bathroom, shower room, sitting room, conservatory, kitchen-cum-breakfast room, roof terrace and garage.
Available through Jackson-Stops. Guide price: £695,000. The other property is one half of the clock house entrance, which has 1,539 sq ft of accommodation, including two bedrooms, a bathroom, shower room, sitting room, dining room, kitchen and utility room.
Available through Sibley Pares. Guide price: £400,000.
Contact details for properties for sale:
Hamptons: 020 3369 4387; www.hamptons.co.uk
Knight Frank: 01483 617910; www.knightfrank.co.uk
Jackson-Stops: 01580 720000; www.jackson-stops.co.uk
Miller Town & Country: 01822 617243; www.millertc.com
Savills: 01223 347261; www.savills.com
Sibley Pares: 01622 673086; www.sibleypares.co.uk
Richard Page’s 40-year property career has included senior roles at Savills, John D Wood & Co, UK Sotheby’s International Realty and Dexters. He is now an independent marketing consultant and director of www.themarketingcafe.net, a video production company. Over the years he has handled or advised on the sale of several Lutyens houses, including Deanery Garden, The Salutation and Marsh Court. He is currently in contact with several buyers looking to purchase a Lutyens house. For further information or if you have any Lutyens-related property news, please contact Richard at landseer75@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: prices and availability correct at time of going to press.
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