Honiley Hall, Beausale, Haseley, Honiley and Wroxall, Warwickshire

Summary

A country house in Elizabethan Revival style, with associated outbuilding ranges and forecourt walls, built in 1913-1915; designed by Charles Edward Bateman, FRIBA (1863-1947) for Herbert Louis Wade, JP (1855-1923).

Description

MATERIALS: pinkish-red brick with plain clay tile roofs.

PLAN: the house is an elongated H-plan, orientated north-south, with its entrance elevation to the west. Adjoining the house at the north end is the service range, which runs north and then joins a long range running east-west; a shorter range extends southwards from its centre, creating a service court north-west of the house.

EXTERIOR: the house, constructed from brick, has a main central range with two short, gabled cross wings, one to either end, projecting slightly from both long elevations. The north end of the main range terminates in a four-storey, castellated tower, its clock a late-C20 replacement for an original window opening. The building is of two storeys and attic, with partial cellars, and a three-storey tower. Window openings are multi-light, mullioned and transomed, some with hood moulds, all with sloping brick cills; the mullions and transoms are built in hollow-chamfered brick. The windows are metal framed with rectangular leading. The cross wings, chimney breasts and tower have diaper work decoration in contrasting brick, and their gables have raised and moulded verges springing from kneelers. Windows in the cross wings diminish in size towards the gables. The tall, clustered stacks are moulded, and have corbelled-out tops. The rainwater goods include elaborate, cast-iron rainwater heads with relief decoration and date of 1914. The entrance front, to the west, has a three-storey, central, projecting porch bay, narrower than the cross wings, with a similar gabled roof to those of the cross wings. The entrance is segmental arched, with a four-light overlight and hood mould, giving way to a recessed porch. To the left, a double-height window marks the principal stair. To the right, in the re-entrant angle between the cross wing and main range, is a double-height square-bay window with parapet roof. The south return has a central gable marking the termination of the main range, flanked by blank, externally-expressed chimney breasts, which adjoin double-height projecting square-bay windows with parapets roofs. Between the bay windows, a steeply-sloping pent roof covers a loggia formed from timber uprights. The central doorway houses a multi-paned glazed door. The garden front, facing east, has a modest central entrance bay with shallow oriel window above, flanked by three bays to either side, the central one a blank, externally-expressed chimney breast separating wide windows with a strong horizontal emphasis. The gabled cross wings have similar fenestration to the entrance elevation. The northern return has high windows marking the stair, and a small raking dormer with timber casement windows.

Beyond the tower, the service rooms begin, with a single storey range which has a high, gabled half-dormer to the kitchen. This short north-south range forms a cross-wing to the slightly lower, long, east-west range which runs for four bays to the east of the house, then forms the east-west element of the service courts to the west of the house. All the service ranges have the same high, moulded coped verges and kneelers as the house, as do the gables. Immediately to the west of the cross wing, the range includes a four-bay, open loggia, with an arcade of semi-circular arches giving access to stores within. To the west of this lies a double garage with modern up and over door. The court is enclosed by the coach house cross-wing, with a high, central gabled carriage opening and central timber cupola with pyramidal roof. The inner elevation has a gabled taking-in doorway above external steps; the three wide openings, the flanking ones enlarged in the later C20, have recent glazed doors. The external elevation has later low lean-to extensions to either side of the carriage opening. The western end section of the service range completes the outbuildings, at right-angles to the coach house; the windows in both these elevations are uPVC casements.

INTERIOR: the house has its brick windows exposed internally, with hollow chamfers. The principal reception rooms have oak floor boards, chair rails and picture rails. The fireplaces to ground and first floors are several different, mainly stone examples, with carved decoration including Tudor roses. The main entrance gives access into a large reception hall, which is partly galleried. This room, the dining room, and drawing room have elaborate, compartmental ceilings divided by moulded beams. Other ceilings have detailed plaster relief decoration to the ceilings. The main stair, rising as a dog-leg from the hall, is oak, a closed string example with turned balusters and heavy newels with finials. The balustrade continues around the partially-galleried landing above. The hall has a full-height stone chimneypiece with shallow four-centred arched opening and stone cornice with carved detailing. The drawing room has small square oak panelling to picture rail height, and a broad stone fireplace with a frieze of Tudor roses and a moulded, four-centred arched opening. Double doors matching the panelling create an opening to the adjoining dining room, which has a similar fireplace to the drawing room. The library has a more baroque fireplace with bolection moulding, and a plaster cornice and ceiling detailing. An alcove is divided from the rest of the room by a wide opening denoting the position of an earlier wall enclosing the butler’s pantry. The morning room has a deep, alcove window seat and bolection moulded fireplace with scroll motifs. Adjoining this room is a large reception room, formerly the drawing room, with a coffered ceiling with moulded plaster frieze of trailing oak leaves and acorns dividing it into compartments. The room has raised and fielded panelling incorporating a flush-fitting fire surround with yellow and black marble insets. The first-floor corridor landing has rooms off to either side; it has a vaulted ceiling with curving top-lights in the compartments of the ceiling, which is created using similar plasterwork frieze to that in the ground-floor former drawing room. Lincrusta wall covering is installed on the ground-floor corridor and first-floor landing to chair rail level. The first-floor rooms retain their skirtings, chair rails and cornices (some cornices are later C20 replacements), and their fireplaces, which are smaller than those to the ground floor but some include similar carved work and show the same degree of variety, and the inclusion of Tudor roses and four-centred-arched openings. Others have moulded timber surrounds and Arts and Crafts tile inserts. The kitchen and former cook’s pantry are now incorporated into a single room, with modern fittings and fixtures. The service stair has raised and fielded panelling, with plain stick balusters and square-section newel posts. A second-floor apartment remains as staff accommodation, with some four-panelled and some ledged and braced plank doors.

The interiors of the storage rooms in the service ranges are largely unaltered, though the opened-up former cow houses at the western end of the long range are now in use as a gym, and the former visitors’ stables are a double garage.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: brick walls extend westwards from either end of the main elevation, those to the north partly enclosing the service court, with a wide opening marked by brick piers with ball finials. Those to the south are lower, with an opening into the garden, with similar piers and finials. The walls have half-round brick capping and decorative scalloped tiles projecting from under the coping.

History

The present Honiley Hall was constructed in 1913-1915 by Herbert Louis Wade, who had purchased the site in 1913 from the Willes family. In 1554 the manor of Honiley was granted by Queen Mary to Michael Throckmorton, of the Warwickshire family. It later passed to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, favourite of Queen Elizabeth, who entertained the monarch at nearby Kenilworth Castle. Old Honiley Hall, probably built about 1625-1636 by Roger Burgoyne, stood close to the Church of St John the Baptist, some distance from the present house. The Hall suffered a disastrous fire in about 1730, and was never rebuilt; it was finally demolished in about 1820, though the C17 coach house and one of the service ranges survived and became dwellings. By this time the site was in the hands of the Granville family, who sold it on to Edward Willes of Newbold Comyn in 1837; the family remained the owners until the sale to Herbert Wade, who commissioned C E Bateman, a regional architect who worked in the Arts and Crafts tradition in a number of Domestic Revival styles, to design a new house for him. Charles Edward Bateman, FRIBA (1863-1947) was born in Castle Bromwich, the son and grandson of the architects John and Joseph Bateman. He entered into partnership with his father in Birmingham in 1887. Their work was mainly domestic, and deemed worthy of mention by Hermann Muthesius in Das Englische Haus, his three-volume treatise on the revival of English Domestic styles in architecture in the late C19 and turn of the C20. CE Bateman’s own practice was more diverse, and he designed buildings ranging from large houses such as Honiley Hall to suburban dwellings, social housing, banks, offices, factories and warehouses. The new house was built in an Arts and Crafts interpretation of Elizabethan building, with diaper brickwork and exposed internal joinery. It was laid out some 0.45km from the old hall, along a straight driveway flanked by an avenue of trees. The house included an extensive suite of principal rooms, with attendant service rooms, on the ground floor, and eleven bedrooms with several bathrooms, dressing rooms and servant’s rooms to the first floor and more servant’s accommodation in the attic. The house, which included staff accommodation, was provided with extensive outbuildings including various domestic offices, a cowhouse and cart stables, garaging for visitors’ cars and stabling for visitors’ horses.

Honiley Hall remained in the ownership of the Wade family until the 1960s, when it was purchased by Warwickshire County Council for use as residential youth centre. Drawings from the time show that the building underwent some internal alterations, with the addition of a partition in the large billiard room; the insertion of showers and lavatories within former dressing rooms and the former coal sheds; and the removal of a screen in the entrance hall. The former cowhouses were opened up in to a single, large social space, and the stabling was converted to a shower area.

In the 1990s, institutional use ended, and the house was sold again to a private buyer, following which some alterations were made to restore it as a family home. Former showers, communal lavatories and dressing rooms largely became ensuite bathrooms, with some attendant changes to doorways. The partition across the billiard room was removed. A bedroom over the stair hall was removed and opened up to create a double-height hall. The former dressing rooms between the principal bedrooms were partly remodelled into a large bathroom, with one wall moved. Some reordering of the internal service rooms was undertaken, with the incorporation of the cook’s pantry into the kitchen, and the closure of the tradesmen’s entrance; the butler’s pantry and safes were removed, creating a larger sitting room now known as the library. In the service ranges, the opened-up former social space was retained, and the rooms either side of the carriage entrance was given over to a display garage. The former shower area in the original visitors’ stables was converted to a closed double garage

An Elizabethan-style knot garden was laid out alongside the house in the early C21.

Reasons for Listing

Honiley Hall, a country house constructed in 1913-1915 to designs by CE Bateman, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a good Elizabethan Revival design demonstrating clear quality in architectural style, designed by CE Bateman, a well-known regional architect of considerable reputation;
* the house is a good example of the Birmingham Arts and Crafts approach to building, with careful massing and elevations, good quality and traditional materials, careful proportions, limited external detailing and adherence to traditional methods and craftsmanship;
* the interior retains its architectural set pieces, with a good entrance hall, broad stair, quietly detailed fixtures and fittings, and a large number of bespoke fireplaces; most areas of the house have been little altered and survive well.

Historic interest:

* as a good Domestic Revival house, reflecting the Arts and Crafts influence on building in Birmingham in the period.

External Links

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