Junior House, Lord Wandsworth College, Long Sutton, Hampshire

Summary

Boarding house at Lord Wandsworth College, 1928-1929 by Guy Dawber.

Description

Boarding house, 1928-1929 by Guy Dawber.

MATERIALS: walls constructed of red and dark brown brick, with stone dressings and clay pan tile roof.

PLAN: broadly symmetrical plan consisting of a central range connecting with cross wings at either end which project to the front (east) and rear (west). The central block of the main range is arranged over three storeys with a basement store and boiler room. The central range steps down to two stories where it meets the cross wings, which maintain this height; the only exceptions being the single-storey front blocks to front of the north and south ends of the building, which originally enclosed small courtyards and have since been filled in.

EXTERIOR: the east elevation forms the main frontage to the Hyde Farm lane, designed in a free Neo-Georgian manner with restrained detailing and a Mediterranean influence reflected in the deep-eaved, hipped-roof form with its pan tiles and finials. The central range is marked by a projecting double-storey frontispiece with a garlanded broken pediment framing a large sash window with a balcony above the entrance. This main entrance has a decorative carved stone architrave with a faceted (or canted) arch integrating a fanlight above a set of double doors with fielded panels. Flanking the doors are sections of raised brick, projecting to create the effect of a pair of piers supporting the pediment. The rest of the central block has multi-paned sashes set under flat-gauged headers (with keystones to the ground floor) and a single ocular window to the centre of the upper storey. The paired stair towers mark the meeting point of the central range with the cross wings, these both with narrow, double-height oriel windows crowned with small ocular windows and set beneath a finial-capped, hipped roof. The end bays of the projecting cross wings to the north and south each have a trio of arch-headed sashes to the ground floor with large sashes with balconies above. The returns of the cross wings and side wings are simply arranged with sashes evenly distributed and set under flat-gauged headers.

The rear (west) elevation is stripped of any applied ornamentation, with a glazed set of double doors out to the gardens set beneath a double-height oriel window in the centre of the range. This is flanked by paired sash windows with segmental headers to the ground and first floors of the central portion of the range, with flat-gauged headers to the rest of the sash windows. To the two-storey bays of the central range there are two bay windows (with sashes) to the ground floor, with paired sashes above. The end bays of the rear projecting cross wings to the north and south each have a trio of sashes with glazed doors to external steel escape stairs above.

The north and south end elevations are more utilitarian in form, mostly with smaller, replacement uPVC windows under simple brick headers. The south elevation does however have a notable pan-tiled door hood set on shaped wooden brackets above the entrance to the kitchens and southern service rooms. A later flat-roofed block is attached to the front of the north end range*.

INTERIOR: the internal plan is brought together by the main corridors on ground and first floors which connect to the cross wings and staircases at either end and have smaller rooms set off to the west side of the central range; this arrangement remaining largely unaltered, although room uses have changed. The main entrance leads to a small tiled lobby with a secondary set of part-glazed double doors aligned with rear doors to the garden set opposite. This leads to the central corridor which runs between the sets of stairs to the north and south. The stairs at both ends of the central range retain iron balusters and raised and turned wooden handrails. The corridors have parquet floors to both levels, with access to a run of smaller rooms to the west (originally staff common rooms and a matron’s office at ground floor and staff bedrooms and the matron’s apartment to the first floor) which retain several original features, including simple fireplaces with moulded surrounds and mantles, picture rails, built-in cupboards and several panelled doors with brass fittings and moulded architraves.

The northern end of the building at ground-floor level has the main students’ recreation room to the rear range of the cross wing, with parquet flooring throughout. To the front (east) side there are a series of WCs, changing areas, showers and store rooms, which are mostly modernised, although the tiling, benching and racks in the changing rooms may date from the inter-war period. The south end of the building at ground-floor level has the dining hall to the rear (west) range, also with a parquet floor and an original serving window from the kitchen. The front range of the southern end accommodates the kitchens and associated store and service rooms, where some 1920s tiling and doors are retained. A students’ common room* has been created from the filled-in courtyard space, where original windows and openings have been either blocked or replaced. At first-floor level there are dormitories and two partitioned-off tutor’s flats (to the south-west side; not inspected) to the cross wing projections, with wash rooms and luggage stores to the north and south ends. The dormitories and washing areas on the first floor retain few features of note, save for door architraves and skirting boards.

* Pursuant to s1 (5A) (b) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest, however any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require LBC and this is a matter for the LPA to determine.

History

Lord Wandsworth College was established with money left by Sydney James Stern, Baron Wandsworth (1844-1912), a banker and MP who was raised to the peerage in 1895. As a Liberal MP for the rural Suffolk constituency of Stowmarket, Stern had taken an interest in agricultural affairs and had been committed to improving the living conditions of the rural poor, introducing three Bills on Better Housing of the Working Classes in Rural Districts in the 1890s. Upon his death in 1912, the majority of his £1.25 million fortune was allocated for a residential institution for the benefit of the rural poor, where ‘scientific and practical training will be given in every branch connected with Agriculture’ (quoted in Podger, pp16-17). In accordance with the stipulations set out in the bequest, a committee formed of various experts in the fields of agricultural management, finance and education was established to oversee the foundation and guide its development. The initial question of the site for the ‘Lord Wandsworth Orphanage’, as it was originally termed, was considered by the Trust in 1913. The Long Sutton estate was chosen from a shortlist in August and acquired in October the same year. At the time of purchase the site was comprised of 950 acres of arable land, with the main Sutton House and its associated farm buildings situated to the south and Hyde Farm and its various buildings set to the west. Bennet’s Field, which occupied the main right of way to Hyde Farm, was subsequently purchased in October 1917. The estate was reported to be in poor condition in 1913, with 17 existing cottages on the estate found to be ‘unfit for human habitation’ and the land and hedges in a ‘dreadful condition’ (Kinney, p43); the state of Long Sutton at this stage reflecting the decades of depression that had severely affected agriculture across the country.

The Lord Wandsworth Foundation was originally conceived along the lines of a model village, with the intention being that small groups of children would reside in cottages overseen by a housemaster and be taught on the farm and at a central school house. Trustees met in January 1914 to consider the layout of the site and instigate an initial building programme. Reginald Blomfield (1856-1942) was appointed to advise the Trust and was given responsibility for selecting an architect to create plans for new buildings under his direction. The architect that Blomfield recommended to the Trust, selected in July 1914 from a field of five candidates, was Guy Dawber (1861-1938); a former President of the Architectural Association, principally known for his designs for many small country houses and writings on vernacular architecture. The earliest work on the estate was divided, apparently with ‘some friction’, between the two architects (Podger, p20). Blomfield assumed responsibility for the lodge and main entrance gates, for which plans were produced in July 1914. In the same year Blomfield also designed Shepewood House and several estate cottages. Additionally, in collaboration with C S Orwin (Director of the Institute for Agricultural Economics at Oxford), he produced plans for the extensive Hyde Farm buildings to the west of the site. Dawber’s early work included a power house and laundry block, designs being produced in February 1915, along with a series of cottages completed by October 1916. Plans for a grand range of school buildings produced by Dawber, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1915, were interrupted by the outbreak of war with only the Administration and Engineering Blocks completed. Further buildings were constructed to Dawber's designs into the 1920s, including School House and Junior House.

Following the War, the Trust fell back on a more modest scheme of development. The shortage of labour and heightened building costs made returning to Dawber’s 1915 plans impracticable and, in March 1921, the Trust dispensed of his services. Instead, a campaign of building simple cottages was embarked upon (planned to be built in phases to the designs of H P G Maulle), partly in accordance with the stipulations of the bequest which set out this favoured model of development, but also undoubtedly influenced by the need for economy at this time. This piecemeal approach was however to be short-lived. In 1922, the appointment of the first Warden, Colonel William Julyan, brought about a more ambitious programme of works. Under Julyan’s tenure (1922-30) there was a focus on formalising the Foundation’s educational programme and arranging the college along more conventional lines; an approach influenced by Julyan’s own time at Oxford and training in Agricultural Law at Gray’s Inn. Julyan held reservations about the Trust’s existing arrangement of housing boys in separate cottages, describing the conditions as ‘Spartan in the extreme’ and claiming the system was impractical owing to the lack of suitable housemasters. Consequently, from 1923, a return to an arrangement along the lines of Dawber’s 1915 plans, albeit in a scaled-back manner, was advocated. Dawber was reappointed and initially plans were produced in for a dining hall in May 1925 which was to serve as a social centre for the college (meals having previously been taken in individual cottages). This was completed in 1926 and its design followed the form of his earlier Administration Block, building on the main axis of the earlier masterplan, thus giving some order and balance to the site arrangement. Subsequent proposals for a large hall and dedicated library were ruled out by the Trust, but plans by Dawber of June 1926 for classrooms and recreation rooms (the present library block) were realised, as were plans for Senior (now School) House (first signed September 1926 and revised January 1927) and, finally, Junior House (April 1928), which together form the present core grouping of college buildings.

The design for Junior House, along with other work by Dawber in the latter half of the 1920s, marked the transition of the Lord Wandsworth Foundation from a residential institution with scattered estate cottages based loosely on the model village principles of the later C19, towards a more conventional public school with boarding houses and communal facilities. In its distance from the core of the college and its relatively late date of commission, Dawber’s plans for Junior House afforded the possibility of breaking with the stylistic conformity of the earlier estate buildings. The boarding house contrasted with Dawber’s early work for the Trust under the direction of Blomfield, with a more expressive rendering of the Trust’s established Neo-Georgian exemplified here. The stripped detailing, bold massing of the building’s distinct elements, along with the material palette (with pan tiles giving a Mediterranean quality to the design) is clearly distinct from any of Dawber’s other work at Long Sutton.

Junior House was Dawber’s final major work for the college, designed in April 1928 with construction completed in 1929. A drawing of the elevations was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1928 and, along with Senior House, it was covered in the Architect and Building News (15 November 1929, pp597-602). Since completion there have been some minor modifications to the building, with the enclosed ‘open areas’ to the north and south wings of the front range ceiled over to create enclosed rooms and the original covered playground (north wing) having its open arches bricked-in to form a changing room. A flat-roofed block was added to the front of the north end range in the early post-war period, built by 1978 according to mapping evidence. Between 1984 and 1986 part of the south-west wing of Junior House was converted to a pair of apartments for tutors.

Reasons for Listing

Junior House at Lord Wandsworth College is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a varied, inventive, and ambitious interpretation of the prevalent Neo-Georgian style of the period, built to the designs of Guy Dawber, a leading architect of the period;

Historic interest:

* as a well-preserved component of an important educational trust focussed on agricultural training, established as a legacy of the Liberal politician and philanthropist Sydney James Stern, Baron Wandsworth (1844-1912);

Group value:

* with the other early Lord Wandsworth College buildings, of which a significant number were also by Dawber. The buildings throughout the estate have a strong collective value, demonstrating careful planning by Blomfield and Dawber, manifest in the varied yet harmonious arrangement of distinguished buildings which draw on vernacular and classical traditions.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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