Description

SE 1218
21/41

HALIFAX ROAD (North Side)
Banney Royd

I

1900-1. Architect: Edgar Wood. Hammer-dressed stone, except for ashlar porch. Pitched stone slate roof. Two storeys. Irregular plan.

Coped gables some with art nouveau detailing. Flat-topped canted bays. Mullioned and transomed windows, some mullions of square, and some of chamfered section. Tall plain stacks, some placed diagonally. One ornamented lintel. One tapering buttress. Many rainwater-heads and downpipes with moulded art nouveau ornament and "WHA" monograms.

The two most striking external features are as follows:
1. Porch. Gabled, with carved art nouveau finial. Tapering diagonally-placed flanking buttresses with moulded cornices. First floor window with moulded art nouveau hoodmould. Round-arched door with carved foliage corbels to arch, exaggerated keystone with art nouveau foliage either side, very deep art nouveau hoodmould. Door itself very simple with two narrow glazed panels (some stained glass), and large brass art nouveau fingerplates. Complex groin vault inside porch, and similar round-arched doors with similar brass finger-plates.

2. Shallow canted projecting chimney breast with coped pitched gable, either side of which deeply overhanging eaves project; and on two sides there are ranges of two-light stone mullioned windows.

Interior: Wainscotted with simple oak panels, cornice about 5 ft up, and tapering pilasters. Staircase has tall plain tapering newels with bands of art nouveau carved briar ornament near tops. Several upstairs rooms have plaster barrel vaults (including stairs), with bands or panel of art nouveau foliage ornament: one barrel-vaulted downstairs corridor with foliage tendrils crossing to form ribs. One upstairs room has canted bay, approached through arch, with two tapering wooden mullions with single applied ornament, duplicating the external mullions. Doors are framed by tapering pilasters of concave section and have tall narrow panels (some with small glazed panels) and art nouveau hinges, latches and finger- plates.

Chief features, however, are the projecting ashlar chimney breasts, which taper upwards are flanked by tapering pilasters or buttresses and have moulded cornices, often with a wavy art nouveau pattern. The lintels and the heads of the buttresses are carved with figures and art nouveau foliage: lintel of hall fireplace has an undulating pattern. Exaggeratedly tall keystones with, in one room, an exaggeratedly deeply moulded "cornice", in another a relief figure inscribed "THE ANGEL OF THE RAINS". No keystone to hall, chimneypiece, but a relief figure bearing legend "EACH MANS CHIMNEY IS HIS GOLDEN MILESTONE". One fireplace is set back behind a broad round arch. Another behind a Venetian arch maken on tapering wooden columns with bands of art nouveau flora and fauna carved round top: very deeply moulded cornice. Steps and balustrades with unmoulded balusters, plain rails and ball finials on garden side.

The house was built for W H Armitage and was one of the outstanding private houses of its decade. It was particularly admired abroad, and was given extensive coverage in Hermann Muthesius' "Das Englische Haus" (1904).

Listing NGR: SE1266518125

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17530417

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Harrow on the Hill: A photographic portrayal of listed buildings and structures (Historic Buildings Picture Guides)
• 
  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House