Description

208/6/29

CHALFONT ST PETER
CHESHAM LANE
Milton House at the National Society for Epilepsy

(Formerly listed as: CHESHAM LANE, MILTON HOUSE CHALFONT CENTRE FOR EPILEPSY)

30-JUL-84

GV
II
Villa accommodation for epileptics, originally for children. 1896-1898 to the designs of either Maurice B. Adams or E.C. Shearman.

Brick on ashlar plinth, with rendered first floor, ashlar to sides. Tiled roof, hipped and with gablets to sides. It is a good example of the distinctive planning found at the Chalfont Centre, with a central two-storey range containing communal living areas on the ground floor and staff accommodation above, with single-storey wings to either side that formerly housed dormitories and a service range to the rear, since extended. Ground floor sash windows set in arched surrounds, first-floor oriels now of uPVC. Central doorway with overscaled segmental hood supported on Ionic pilasters, and central arched timber and glass door in glazed surround.

The former Chalfont colony was founded in 1894 to give a normal, healthy village life to epileptics. It pioneered the concept of a village community for mental patients, which was widely adopted, firstly for other epileptic hospitals and in the inter-war period for institutions serving other mental disabilities.

Milton House and Pearman House stand on slightly higher ground within the village, and form a strong group with Greene House. These buildings at the Chalfont Centre form an important group, for their historic interest in the treatment of epilepsy and as examples, if altered, of Arts and Crafts architecture designed to give a domestic feel to a hospital institution.

Source
Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, unpublished report NBR no.100291.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26617331

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

• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Yorkshire: York and the East Riding (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]