Hardwick Manor with walled garden and gates, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

Summary

Hardwick Manor is a 'Tudorbethan' country house constructed between 1926 and 1928 to the designs of Kersey, Gale and Spooner.

Description

Hardwick Manor is a 'Tudorbethan' country house constructed between 1926 and 1928 to the designs of Kersey, Gale and Spooner.

MATERIALS: the ground floor has walls of random flint rubble with brick dressings, and the upper storeys are timber framed. The cross wings to the south are walled in un-coursed limestone rubble with brick dressings. The roofs are pitched and covered in plain machine tiles.

PLAN: the 1920s plan remains relatively well-preserved: principal reception spaces flank an entrance hall at ground floor and service areas are separated. Principal bedrooms occupy the first floor and service accommodation in the attic, facing away from the gardens.

EXTERIOR: the building is accessed from the east side. It is two storeys high with a large attic. The focus of the east elevation is a two and a half storey cross wing that sits off-centre with four bays to the south and three bays to the north. The cross wing has a (post-war) glazed porch at ground floor that features a Tudor gothic doorway with carved details above, and a lead roof. To the left and right of the porch are large carved consoles. At first floor there is diagonal bracing each side of a five-light mullion and transom window. The gabled attic storey of the cross wing has close studding, a three-light casement window, carved eaves brackets and moulded barge boards. On each side of the cross wing the east elevation includes a ground floor of flint rubble. The extent of the original bothy can be identified where the brick plinth is missing. There are two oak doors with ventilation grilles and stone surrounds leading to cellars. The jettied first floor is close studded. The attic has flat roofed doormers on each side of the cross wing. There are four tall brick chimney stacks. All of the windows are multi-light casements.

The gabled north elevation has a flint rubble ground floor with brick dressings and timber framed upper storeys. At the centre of the elevation is a tall projecting brick chimney stack. On each side of the stack at first floor are mullion and transom windows, and at first floor there are two-light casements.

The west elevation faces onto a terrace overlooking the walled garden. The two smaller cross wings of the original bothy sit below the principal roof and are walled in limestone rubble with brick dressings; they have plain barge boards and the windows have been replaced with 1920s multi-light casements. Between the two cross wings is an entrance at ground floor: a multi-pane glazed door beneath a four-centred arch with a hood mould that covers two side-lights that flank the door way; the walls of the entrance bay are limestone rubble with limestone dressings. There is a further single bay to the north and two to the south, the ground floor parts of which reuse the Victorian flint garden wall. There are additional entrances in the northern bay, and in the south cross wing. At first floor the walls are close studded and feature the same casement windows that are used in different numbers across the elevation. There are no dormers on the west elevation.

The south elevation connects at ground floor to the C21 extension. The first floor and gabled attic storey are close studded. There are carved eaves brackets and plain barge boards. Between a two-light casement at first floor and a four-light casement above is a carved cockatoo in a rosebush.

The C21 extension is built of red brick in stretcher bond and is one bay in width. It presents a gable to the west that has a canted bay window and jettied attic. There is a flint-walled stair turret to the east, at the base of which is a date stone: AD 2001. There is a chimney and a dormer window on the south side, and a single storey link to the ground floor of the house. The link has a mullion and transom glazed porch on the east side.

INTERIOR: the interior has two presiding characters. The high status areas of the house (the ground floor reception rooms and first floor accommodation) have an abundance of small field panelling, joinery and cabinetry in oak, elm and walnut. The historic service areas, such as the scullery, pantry, and attic accommodation, are plainer but retain well-crafted joinery and there is a good survival of original 1920s fittings.

The dining room, south of the entrance hall, has scratch-moulded small field panelling with a low skirting, a frieze and cornice. The panels have been designed to fit the room, but some features, notably the frieze around the south-west corner with panels of carved lozenges, appear to have a greater degree of antiquity. The fireplace has a 1920s Tudor gothic stone surround and a Jacobean style overmantle of three carved arches.

The principal reception room, north of the hall, is irregular in shape. It has oak panelling with higher skirtings, a frieze and cornice. The panel rails do not appear to match the stiles. The fireplace has a stone surround in a Tudor gothic style.

The entrance hall has a floor of stone flags. Dado panelling has been removed from the side walls. The lower part of the staircase projects into the room.

The staircase winds from ground floor to first, with a separate continuation of the same details to the attic. It incorporates some early- to mid-C17 fabric alongside replicated 1920s additions. The newel posts, finials and balusters are all pierced with similar motifs. The splat balusters replicate the profile of the newel posts and taper from top to bottom. The handrails are likely to be 1920s in date, though some have significant patination.

The first floor bedrooms have fireplaces, 1920s joinery, and some dado panelling. The layout is largely unaltered, though all the bathrooms have been updated. A servant's washroom remains largely unaltered at first floor.

The attic storey is less decorative but retains original joinery and ironmongery.

Most of the Arts and Crafts ironmongery throughout the house is by the firm of Thomas Elsley of Great Portland Street, notable for their collaborations with Charles Voysey.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the garden walls are set out in a roughly square plan with curved corners. Most of the walls are built of soft red brick laid in monk bond with stone copings and buttresses on the outer face. The coursing slopes to follow the gradient of the hill. A long row of iron brackets runs along the south facing sides of the north and south walls. There is an ornamental gateway facing west, it incorporates slightly altered iron gates which originally stood at the eastern end of the garden at the rear of Hardwick House. There is a second gateway on the north wall dated 1850 on the keystone of a round arch, beneath a crenellated parapet. The south-east corner has been reconstructed in the post war period and extends south. The east wall is constructed of flint cobbles with brick piers and a tall brick parapet; it only survives on the south side of the house, where it connects to the C21 extension. The curved north-west corner of the garden is also built of flint and brick and connects to a C21 gateway and drive.

History

Hardwick Manor was constructed in 1926-1928 and incorporates the Victorian gardener's cottage of a demolished Jacobean stately home called Hardwick House.

The Hardwick estate originated in around 1610 when it was first brought into single ownership by Sir Robert Drury. In the later C17 the estate changed hands when it was acquired by Robert Cullum, whose descendants remained at Hardwick until the 1920s. By the early C20 the estate included lodges, stables, and ancillary domestic structures; there were ornamental agricultural features such as thatched sheep sheds, a dairy, and a home farm; and there was a designed parkland with a variety of landscape types ranging from lawns and meadows to nutteries and tree plantations.

Within this elaborate landscape was a gardeners cottage called 'The Bothy' which stood on the east side of a walled garden roughly 250m north-west of Hardwick House. The bothy was constructed for Rev Sir Thomas Gery Cullum in 1837 in a picturesque style. Its south elevation formed part of the east wall of the garden. It had two gabled cross wings and a single storey bay in the centre with an attic room above. The walls were faced with limestone rubble with brick dressings. There were carved gothic bargeboards with finials, rubbed brick chimneys in a Tudor style, steep thatched roofs, and leaded lights in casement windows.

In 1921 the last member of the Cullum family to live at Hardwick died intestate. The estate was divided into lots and sold between 1922 and 1924. The contents of the house were sold at auction in 1924. Alderman George C Goodey, a retired builder, bought the house and broke it up for building materials. In the same year he sold the bothy to A W Hewitt.

Hewitt commissioned architects Kersey, Gale and Spooner to radically recast the bothy into a large 'Tudorbethan' country house renamed 'Hardwick Manor'. The building work was carried out by H G Frost between around 1926-1928. One bay was added to the north and two to the south. The first floor was enlarged and a further attic storey created beneath a substantial new roof. The interiors were finished with an extensive scheme of small field panelling, partly incorporating reused late C16 or early C17 fabric which may have been salvaged from Hardwick House. The newel posts, balusters and handrails of an authentic Jacobean staircase were incorporated into the new staircase for the house.

As with the design of the bothy, Hardwick Manor incorporated the features of the walled garden into its design and presentation. Gates from the rear gardens of Hardwick House were installed at the west end of the garden, and a terrace and rusticated pergola were introduced.

In 1953 Hardwick Manor was sold but remained in domestic use. The house did not undergo any major alterations to its higher status areas during this later period, though the kitchens have been completely remodelled. At some point in the C20 a porch was added to the east cross wing with a new entrance replacing a doorway that had been on the cross wing's south side. In 2001 a low two-storey extension was attached to the kitchens on the south side of the house by a single-storey link.

Kersey, Gale and Spooner was the partnership of Alexander Henry Kersey (1850-1938) with George Alexander Gale and Charles Sydney Spooner (1862-1934) which lasted until 1934. Spooner is perhaps the best known of the three, an Arts and Crafts architect, who had been articled in 1881 to Sir Arthur Blomfield. He joined the Art Workers Guild in 1887 and was also an early member of SPAB and personally influenced by William Morris. Spooner taught furniture design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts under W R Lethaby and, with A J Penty and Fred Rowntree, started a furniture workshop called Elmdon and Co. He authored several books, including with Sir Charles Nicholson, ‘Recent English and Ecclesiastical Architecture’ in 1911. He worked across England and there are several listings of his work; the nearest to Hardwick Manor is the Church of St Bartholomew, Ipswich, listed at Grade II (NHLE 1237360).

Reasons for Listing

Hardwick Manor, a 'Tudorbethan' country house constructed between 1926 and 1928 to the designs of Kersey, Gale and Spooner, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the high quality of its interiors, especially the principal staircase and areas of small field panelling;
* for the legible phases of development, allowing the earlier Victorian gardener's cottage to be read as part of the 1920s house.

Historic interest:

* as a surviving remnant of the Hardwick House estate, a lost Jacobean country house and designed landscape;
* as a good example of an inter-war country house that has been little altered since its construction.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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