Tree Cottage and Artist's Studio, Upper Basildon, West Berkshire

Description

BASILDON

278/0/10023 BETHESDA STREET
21-FEB-11 Tree Cottage and artist's studio

II
Cottage, late-C17, with C20 extensions and alterations.

MATERIALS: Timber-frame, Flemish and Stretcher bond brickwork, tile roofs.

PLAN: Tree Cottage is a vernacular two-pile cottage with a double-pitched roof. At its core, is a post-medieval timber-framed cottage but it has subsequently been extended. The original building is to the north-east and was a two-up, two-down cottage.

EXTERIOR: The main elevation faces south-east onto Bethesda Street with a C20 rain-hood over the front door. The original two-cell cottage is to the north-east but has been extended in the C20 (again post-1912) to the rear (west) to create a two pile house. An additional bay has also been added to the south of the original cottage. There is a C20 single-storey kitchen and bathroom extension to the south-west. There are two chimney stacks: a corner stack in the study at what would have been the south-west corner of the original cottage, and an end stack with bread oven on the north gable. This is of circular form with a corbelled brick roof and had been protected externally by a hipped tiled roof supported on timber piers. The majority of the windows are late-C20 uPVC replacements. There are two surviving older leaded windows: one in the north elevation to the west of the bread oven, (the other now lights a cupboard in the south landing). Gilbert Spencer describes in his 1974 memoirs for the period 1936-9 how 'several of our windows were newly leaded. With the exception of one in the old part of the cottage, which had G Evans 1888 scratched on it, we had them changed...' The window in the north elevation is therefore assumed to be mid-to-late-1930s. C20 dormers have now been added to light the upper floor, the insertion of which interrupts a dentilled eaves band.

INTERIOR: Timber-framing is evident in the historic north-east core of the house including wall-plates and clasped purlins, also mid-rails, thin scantling and up braces. Internal walls are plastered and it is therefore unclear whether original panel infill survives but this is a possibility. There is a pegged frame to the door between the hall and sitting room in the west extension which has probably been relocated. An original chamfered axial beam in the sitting room, with wide chamfer, is probably C17. The staircase, which is oriented west to east is of C20 date. It is not therefore clear how the upper floor was originally accessed; there could have been an earlier stair in the eastern pile of the house in the position of the present west to east landing, or simply a ladder providing access to the roof space.

ANCILLARY BUILDING (ARTIST'S STUDIO): To the north-west of the cottage is a stand-alone 1930s studio built for the artist Gilbert Spencer. This is a rectangular weatherboarded structure, oriented West to east with a pitched roof covered in diamond shaped felt tiles. Large windows to the south and west, the latter floor to ceiling in height, are designed to allow the maximum amount of light into the studio. Both are timber-framed with multiple lights. The studio is entered through a simple plank door in the south elevation and the interior is a single space with panelling to dado height and a wooden floor. A modern lean-to shed has been built against the east wall but is not of special interest.

HISTORY: Tree Cottage originated in the late-C17 when the building consisted of a one-and-a-half storey two-cell house. A building is shown at the same location and alignment as the present cottage on a number of early maps, namely: the 1769 Fane Survey; 1809 Enclosure Award; an estate map of 1838 (drawn by Daniel Smith & Sons on the occasion of the sale of the estate by Sir Francis Sykes to James Morrison) and the 1840 Tithe map. Ordnance Survey maps are also helpful in showing changes in more detail. On the 1st edition OS map of 1878 the cottage is shown as broadly rectangular but with a stepped north gable where the current chimney stack projects from the building line. There is also an L-shaped rear extension to the west, a small rectangular outbuilding to the east, and an even smaller example to the far west of the plot. A very similar arrangement is shown in 1899 although the L-shaped out-building has been reduced to a rectangular one. By 1912 only the small out-building to the east remains. This map sequence suggests that all of the extensions to the property - to the south, south-west and north-east - are later than 1912. The somewhat awkward position of the oven and relationship to the chimney also point to it being a late addition. It may, in common with other bread ovens of this large size and date, have had a village bakery function.

Between 1935/6 and 1970 the cottage was owned and occupied by Gilbert Spencer and his wife Ursula. Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) was a painter. He was born in Cookham, Berkshire and trained at the Camberwell School of Art, the Royal College of Art and at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He was primarily a landscape artist and was particularly celebrated for his rural and farmyard scenes although also painted portraits and murals. He served in Macedonia with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War and was appointed an official war artist during the Second World War. Although not as well-known as his older brother Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) who is generally regarded as the most important British painter of the early-C20 (Stanley Spencer's Crucifixion (1921), The Resurrection, Cookham (1924-6) and his nineteen war memorial murals decorating the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Hampshire (1926-1932) are among his most famous works), Gilbert was a painter of some repute. He was a Royal Academician, won prizes for his work including the coveted life drawing prize at the Slade in 1914, and held his first one man show in 1923. He taught at the Royal College of Art and was Head of Painting at both Camberwell and Glasgow Schools of Art, three of the leading art schools in Britain. Spencer painted a number of murals including An Artist's Progress for the Royal Academy restaurant, also for Holywell Manor, Balliol College Oxford (1936) and The Scholar Gipsy for the students' union at University College London (c1956-8). He painted a number of scenes of Basildon and also its inhabitants and was much inspired by his locality. One such shows the back garden at Tree Cottage as viewed from his studio which he had built for himself in order to have space to work on his larger pictures and which he describes in his memoirs. There is also a self-portrait in the Royal Academy collection which was painted in his studio and entitled Activity at Tree Cottage No. 2 (1967). Other local images include a pencil drawing of Mrs Lily Evans (1967) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy and a painting of Hook End Farm (both reproduced in Owen 2008). Gilbert apparently normally preferred to work out of doors but also painted in his cottage or in what he called his 'little Colt Studio'.

Gilbert Spencer's works are held in the collections of a number of major museums and galleries including the Royal Academy, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Imperial War Museum, Tate Britain and other city galleries throughout Britain. His best known painting is probably A Cotswold Farm of 1930-1 which is in the Tate collection.

SOURCES: Spencer, G, Memoirs of a Painter (1974), Tree Cottage references at 124-5, 209
Williams, C, Basildon, Berkshire: an illustrated history of a Thames-side parish (2008, 2nd edition), particularly 238-40, 262-3
MacCarthy, F, Spencer, Sir Stanley (1891-1959), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36211 [accessed 15 February 2010]
Martineau, Catherine, Spencer, Gilbert (1892-1979), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31708/31708?back=,36211[accessed 15 February 2010]

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Tree Cottage, Upper Basildon, a timber-framed cottage of late-C17 origin, and its detached artist's studio of c1935/6, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Fabric and date (cottage): a modest vernacular cottage which retains much of its late-C17 timber frame and is therefore an early survival nationally;
* Fabric (studio): a 1930s studio purpose-built for the artist Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979);
* Historic interest: the cottage was occupied by the celebrated C20 artist Gilbert Spencer who had the garden studio built for his use. He lived here, with his family, and painted here between 1935/6 and 1970.

Reasons for Listing

Tree Cottage, Upper Basildon, a timber-framed cottage of late-C17 origin, and its detached artist's studio of c1935/6, are recommended for listing at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Fabric and date (cottage): a modest vernacular cottage which retains much of its late-C17 two-cell timber frame and is therefore an early survival nationally;
* Fabric (studio): a 1930s studio purpose-built for the artist Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979);
* Historic interest: the cottage was occupied by the celebrated C20 artist Gilbert Spencer who had the garden studio built for his use. He lived here, with his family, and painted here between 1935/6 and 1970.

External Links

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