Description

MARGATE

878/0/10061 ST CLEMENTS ROAD
27-SEP-06 WESTGATE-ON-SEA
ELLINGHAM

II
Detached house, later subdivided into three flats. Circa 1883, probably by Charles Nightingale Beazley. One-storey north west extension added by 1908. Queen Anne style fused with the seaside tradition.

MATERIALS: Ground floor of English bond brickwork, first floor hung with ornamental diamond-shaped tiles interspersed with some courses of plain tiles. Hipped tiled roof with terracotta ridge tiles and three tall brick chimneystacks (one truncated). The three principal elevations have a modillion cornice and wide overhang, supported on a two storey wooden balcony, with turned Jacobean style balusters. Most elevations have gabled dormers. Windows are mainly 12-pane sash windows with a number of French windows.

PLAN: Rectangular with an extension to the north west forming an L-wing.

EXTERIOR: The south or entrance front has two gabled dormers, the first floor has three French windows with six panes to the upper parts and the ground floor has a right-side three-light canted bay and a central square glazed brick porch on a brick plinth with deep moulded plinth and decorative leaded light windows with alternate rectangular and elongated hexagonal leaded lights.
The west or garden front has a gabled dormer with two eight-pane sash windows, French window to first floor and ground floor cambered French window to the right and central five-light canted bay window comprising two sashes with horns but without glazing bars and three French windows.
The north or rear elevation has a gabled dormer with two eight-pane sashes, two canted bay windows to the first floor and a north west ground-floor extension in stretcher bond brickwork with sash windows and similar balustrading to the balcony. The east elevation has two gabled dormers, a first-floor sash and a ground-floor porch, originally the tradesmens' entrance.

INTERIOR: Has been subdivided into three flats but key features survive. Staircase-hall with six-panelled door, the four upper panels with leaded lights with an identical pattern to the porch and an oak dogleg staircase with panelled base, slender turned balusters and turned newel posts with ball finials. The ground floor has a room with a wooden bolection-moulded fireplace, another with a Louis XVI wooden fireplace with console brackets and tiled surround with cast iron fireplace and a further fireplace with tiled surround and mirrored overmantel with moulded shelf. The corridor retains a wooden serving hatch into the kitchen. The kitchen retains a late C19 built-in dresser and cupboard. The cellar retains a tiled floor, coal holes and wine bins. The first floor has a rear room with a moulded fireplace with eared architrave and tiled surround and a moulded cornice. The top floor retains two original fireplaces.

HISTORY: Ellingham is thought to have been built circa 1883 by Charles Nightingale Beazley although unfortunately none of his manuscripts or drawings survive in the RIBA. The house first appears on the 2nd edition OS map of 1898. By the 3rd edition OS map of 1908 an extension had been added to the north side.
Charles Nightingale Beazley was articled to William Wilkinson Wardell between 1853-56 and then served as an assistant to G E Street from 1858, starting in independent practice in 1860. He became a FRIBA in 1880. In 1865 the owner of land at Westgate, Mr H D Mertens, commissioned Beazley to make plans for laying out the site for building, but apart from the coming of a railway station little had been accomplished by the time that the site was sold in 1868 to a Mr W Corbett who began to build houses. By 1879 only two squares and a few villas had been built in Gothic style. In 1880 Westgate started to become fashionable with the aristocracy and artists and Ernest George designed Waterside for the brother of his partner H A Peto in the Queen anne style of Norman Shaw. At about the same time Exbury was built next to Waterside, possibly by Beazley and in 1883 a house on the front at Westgate by Beazley was illustrated in The Builder and shows a Queen Anne style amalgamated with the local seaside tradition. Ellingham is certainly by the same hand and similar vintage. Beazley was latterly permanently resident in Westgate. Local oral tradition is that an artist and his family lived here at one time. At a later stage Ellingham is reputed to have been an annexe to a nearby hotel and for a period a boarding school. It has been divided into three flats since the second half of the C20.

STATEMENT OF IMPORTANCE: Ellingham is an interesting fusion of the Queen Anne style with the local seaside tradition of verandahs with elaborately turned wooden columns. It is a good quality and well-preserved example of the style by a local architect who had been articled to Wardell and served as an assistant to G E Street.

SOURCES:
Mark Girouard, Sweetness and Light (1977),186-189.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26671121

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

• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)