Norney Grange, morning visit

Saturday 27 September 2025, 10am to 12 noon

Elstead Road, Shackleford, Surrey GU8 6AY

Images are courtesy of Barnes & Lockhart, Norney Grange (save the last)

Norney Grange was designed in 1897 by Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (known as CFA Voysey) for the Reverend Leighton Crane.  He extended the main house in 1903 beyond the westernmost gable.  The railway, which had come to Guildford in 1845 and to Godalming four years later, encouraged men with new wealth to settle around here.  Voysey built several houses nearby.  He was trying to discover the Englishness in architectural style and he experimented at Norney.  Thus the slates on this and on many of his houses are from Westmorland.  The leaded light windows are of Tudor style. At the eastern end the shaped leaded roofs above the inglenooks are of Gothic style.  The walls which surround the drive circle before the front door have an ogee profile, a trace of the Gothic.  The panelling inside is of Austrian oak, but apparently such trees grew on the nearby common. He displays, also, some foreign styles: the round window above the front door is Roman.  The metalwork on the front door is Belgian Art Nouveau.  So, too, are the bars for opening and closing windows which you can see from outside or inside the house.

Voysey’s approach was holistic; he designed everything. Thomas Elsey of West London made for him the metalwork gutters, down pipes, door handles, key holes and keys, fireplaces, air vents and hinges.  Voysey designed also doors, fitted cupboards and dressers.  He designed, for other houses, furniture, tables and chairs.  He had designed a billiard table for this house.  He disparaged overt decoration and fashions in furniture and wanted it to be simple and functional.

Voysey was the son of a clergyman and had strong ethical principles. He valued the family strongly and so he designed high chimneys.  These proclaim the warmth below of the family fire and of the family.  Also he tries, in this house, to combine the grand – the long north face, the large front hall – with the smaller, the domestic.  The western extension is small, lower and full of variety is the windows around the chimney at the eastern end are tiny.  The octagonal bedroom within has an inglenook and bay.  Voysey breaks the whole to make it seem less grand.  He has done something similar in the drawing room.

Above image: Taken from The Architectural Review volume 5 – December 1898 to May 1899, page n24. Courtesy of Wiki Commons.

The house is deliberately asymmetric outside and, in most rooms, inside.  The south, more domestic face is still less symmetrical than the north.  Symmetry implies control and power.  Much of the front north face is flat and, towards the east, grand.  The roof above is full of variety.  There are two cross roofs, the main one with a change in pitch. From west to east there is a series of gables of increasing size.  Many, on the north side, are flat.  However, between the two greatest is a thrusting curved stone porch topped by a large circular window and curved roof. The roof on the western side of that gable used to sweep down to head height.  You can still see, on the southern side, the line of that roof.

The Reverend Crane first had the lodge near the church built and designed his garden while the main house was being built.  He had talked to Lutyens but chose Voysey.  They seem to have got on very well; Alastair Service of the Victorian Society wrote:

“But the major achievement of Norney is the intense feeling of unity between house and garden … the loving care poured into the achievement of unity with nature makes for an architectural experience of a high order.”

Norney Grange has been featured in the TV series Midsomer Murders, Miss Marple: Nemesis and London Spy, as well as the films Carrington, The Dig and Wimbledon.

Tickets are £25 for members and £35 for non-members.

There is parking available on site so we will be directed when we arrive (not before 9.45).   There will not be any refreshments.   Please be aware that this is a private house with staircase and different levels to negotiate in the garden.