Description

SU 7681 HENLEY-ON-THAMES ROTHERFIELD ROAD
(South side)

696/6/10006 No. 9
Past Field

II

Private house. Commissioned 1959, built 1960 by Patrick Gwynne for Dr and Mrs A Salmon. Extended 1967 by Gwynne as envisaged in the original concept. Purple Fletton brick and Afrormosia timber boarding. Monopitch roof with deep eaves and aerofoil shaped underside. Built with angled plan, single storey. Entrance front brick wall to left of entrance with clerestorey over, vertical Afrormosia timber boarding to right with clerestorey over. Door inset at angle, of frameless toughened glass with fixed light to side, abutting curved timber wall of bathroom. Garden front brick crosswall forms pier at inset angle. To the left, six bays beneath eaves, which are shaped and coated in Pyroc rough plaster. To the right, three bays full-height steel-framed glazing and two further bays projecting, over brick paved terrace, with octagonal window in end bay.
Interior. Pyrok ceilings throughout. Purple Fletton brick runs as paving through hall and through sliding door to living room, where it forms raised platform by fireplace, with two steps of cantilevered black terrazzo down to floor of African hardwood block, with area of brick paving continuous with external terrace. Fireplace wall of purple Fletton brick with simple recessed hearth and other openings. This and other crosswalls are shaped with shallow S curve following line of roof, with narrow flashgap joint. Exposed brick continues along back wall, with two 3.5" steel columns standing forward, supporting veneered fronted and topped unit. Black terrazzo shelves in wall. End wall vertically boarded with wide opening formed in place of original door and hatch. Dining room vertically boarded, kitchen beyond. Bathroom beside entrance with lemon yellow mosaic to dado height and angled laminated fittings. Crosswalls in bedrooms of lavender coloured sand-lime brick, shaped to roofline. Principal bedroom includes built-in desk in vertically boarded panelling.
A small, relatively low-budget house by Patrick Gwynne which reveals the essential ideas in his architecture better than do larger examples: variety of materials, effect of plan and levels, non-orthogonal geometry. The house was extended in 1967 to designs by Gwynne, envisaged in his original concept.
SOURCES: Patrick Gwynne: Houses: Privately Printed, n.d; Penelope Whiting: New Houses: 1964-: 118-122)

Listing NGR: SU7619181128

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26656420

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

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings