Description

1680/0/10008
14-NOV-2006

BOSTON SPA
OAKS LANE
FOUR GABLES AND ATTACHED CONTEMPORARY GARDEN WALL INCLUDING THAT PART WITHIN WOODSIDE
(Formerly listed as:
OAKS LANE
Four Gables)

II

Detached house with attached garden wall, dated 1900 with later C20 alterations and additions. Built for Dr John Henry Whitham, architect unknown. Narrow hand-made bricks, sandstone dressings, rough-cast, slate roof, brick stacks.

PLAN: A roughly square plan with canted bay to the west, main entrance doorway and porch adjoining south side, and main rooms to west and south. Service rooms to east side, with small wing extending in southerly direction from south-east corner.

EXTERIOR: Main (west) elevation of three storeys and two bays with two symmetrical shaped gables, flanked by tall brick stacks to the side elevations. Ground floor of narrow hand-made bricks, mainly stretcher bond with occasional double row of headers, and sandstone dressings. Left-hand bay with six-light stone mullioned window, with wide central mullion. Right-hand bay has a wide stone canted bay window with moulded stone band above a recessed base. Two-light casements to each plane of window. Windows on ground floor have square-set leaded glazing. First and second floors are rough-cast, with tile and wider brick coping to gables. Left-hand bay has two-storey five-light canted oriel window, with single-light casement to right of first-floor window. Right-hand bay has similar two-storey five-light canted bay window, with single-light casement to left of first-floor window. Windows have timber frames and diagonally-set leaded glazing. In the central plane between the first and second-floor windows are carved stone flower motifs. Between the two bays are cast-iron downpipes with decorative rainwater hoppers. A flat-roofed single-storey brick porch is recessed to the right-hand side against the south, side elevation. The stone door surround has a carved door lintel incorporating the initials J H W and date 1900 in the manner of a C17 West Yorkshire vernacular door lintel. Original door with two lozenge-shaped fielded panels beneath a light with patterned leaded glazing. The secondary elevations are two storeys in height and irregular in design, with two original differing shaped gables to the south (garden) elevation. Modern two-storey gable to south-east corner, rebuilt single-storey wing. Tall six-light stair window to east elevation with geometric leaded glazing.

INTERIOR: Large entrance hall, with red tiled floor, brick fireplace, moulded cornice, decorative ceiling plasterwork, open arcade to main staircase, which is open-string, two square-turned balusters per tread, shaped cheekpieces, moulded mahogany handrail and newel post with acorn finial. Drawing room and dining room linked by wide opening between the two rooms. Oak floorboards, fireplace (with altered surround) in drawing room, built-in panelled cupboard in dining room. Moulded cornices and decorative ceiling plasterwork to both rooms. Panelled cupboards in original kitchen (now laundry room). Oak floorboards to first and second floors. Secondary staircase between first and second floors with round-turned balusters, moulded mahogany handrail and newel post with ball finial. Three original bedrooms on first floor have picture rails and original art nouveau styled fireplaces. Two original bedrooms on second floor have original art nouveau styled fireplaces. Original linen cupboard on second floor with five-panelled doors. Features of note include original five-panelled doors and architraves throughout, and ironmongery to casements. Scullery altered and extended. Small cellar with stone steps.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Garden wall of narrow hand-made bricks with coping of tiles and larger bricks. Approximately 2.5m in height running along north boundary, with short curved return to entrance gateway on west side of property, eastern boundary (the length of the original garden) and returning along the original southern boundary, with a potting shed with shaped gables (the southern part of the original garden no longer belongs to Four Gables). Lower wall of same bricks with stone coping enclosing service yard to east side of house: wall running between north boundary wall and house has two tall square gate piers with low timber gates. Lean-to brick outbuilding with two stacks against east boundary wall on east side of house, with adjoining lean-to glasshouse retaining brick base, but with aluminium frame.

HISTORY: Built in 1900 on previously undeveloped field for Dr John Henry Whitham. The architect is unknown.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE
Four Gables is of special architectural interest as a house designed in the Arts and Crafts style, a movement which began in England in the late C19, and which set out to re-establish the skills of craftsmen and artists threatened by industrial mass production. This movement was most eloquently expressed in private house design, where particular emphasis was placed on the form and detailing of the principal elevation, and references to traditional or vernacular building traditions. This is clearly seen at Four Gables, which, despite different phases of alteration and extension retains both its distinctive external architectural character and its interior spatial qualities, plan form, and fixtures and fittings. The house was planned originally to sit within a generous garden (now sub-divided) and is linked to its supporting landscape by a substantial brick enclosure wall.

SE4264545718

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26671158

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)