Lindors and associated gatepiers, balustrade and walls, St. Briavels, Gloucestershire

Summary

A smaller, pricturesque country house, built in about 1846 for James White, a local land agent, possibly incorporating some C18 fabric from an earlier house on the site; extended and altered in the 1880s by William Taprell Allen, FRIBA, for Algernon Strickland. Further alterations in the later C20 and C21 for hotel use. The associated balustrade and curved walkway to the rear of the house, and two pairs of gatepiers, are also included. The later C20 conservatory extension to the southern end of the earlier range is excluded.

Description

A smaller country house, built in about 1846 for James White, a local land agent, possibly incorporating some C18 fabric from an earlier house on the site; extended and altered in the 1880s by William Taprell Allen, FRIBA, for Algernon Strickland. Resulting in a picturesque, rambling, Tudor-Gothic detailed country house of distinctive character. Further alterations in the later C20 and C21 for hotel use. The associated balustrade and curved walkway to the rear of the house, and two pairs of gatepiers, are also included. The later C20 conservatory extension to the southern end of the earlier range is excluded.

MATERIALS
Local sandstone with limestone dressings, slate roofs and brick stacks.

PLAN
An irregular plan with roughly T-shaped principal range to the south-west, with additional principal rooms attached at a forty-five degree angle running north-eastwards, and service ranges beyond.

EXTERIOR
The building is in a strongly Picturesque style, with Tudor Gothic features, stone mullioned and transomed windows, clusters of tall, octagonal bricks stacks, and highly elaborate, pierced and moulded bargeboards to the extensive gables. The earlier, T-shaped house, dating from about 1846, is of two storeys, and the 1880s additions are of two storeys and attics. The former service buildings are generally of one-and-a-half-storeys. Window surrounds are mainly in limestone; those added in the 1880s work are stone mullioned and transomed, the upper lights with four-centred-arched tops, under hood moulds terminating in diamond stops. The earlier windows retained in the 1846 range have pointed-arched tops to their lights. Some of the upper floor windows in these ranges replicate this pattern in timber. The 1840s stone dressings are in a greyish limestone, whereas those replaced in the 1880s, or those found in the 1880s extensions, are in a warmer, yellow limestone.

The garden front, facing south-west, is the main range of the 1846 house. This is of two storeys and five bays, with two gables. The central bay has a canted bay window at ground-floor level, with a castellated parapet. To either side are pairs of windows. Hipped, glazed pent roofs carried on pierced, Gothic iron uprights form a verandah to either side of the bay window. One of the gables has a small ventilator at its apex; the other carries a blank carved shield intended for an armorial. Attached at the south end is a late-C20, flat-roofed conservatory, which is excluded from the listing. The entrance front, to the east, is formed partly from the rear wing of the 1846 range, with additions made in the 1880s. To the left, a three-bay, two-storey range of 1846, refenestrated in the 1880s, with two gables. A projecting ground-floor bay has a castellated parapet over a porch with a four-centred arched doorway and a four-light window. The porch has panelled double doors with coloured glazing. To the right, a range of two wide bays and three storeys; one wide, gabled bay with a two-storey bow window, and a secondary entrance to the ground floor; the right hand bay with a gabled half-dormer and a canted first-floor oriel window with a carved foliate frieze below; both windows have castellated parapets. The eastern return side is irregular, with the later ranges adjoining the earlier house at a steep angle; the left bay is gabled, with paired windows to the first floor under a continuous hood mould with carved stops depicting ivy leaves. The central two bays are deeply recessed, that to the right less so; this bay forms a castellated tower. A frieze of quatrefoils runs across both bays forming a band between the first floor and attic. The right bay projects forward again, and has floor levels offset from those in the adjacent bays. The return side has projecting stacks and a doorway at the rear, under a pent-roofed porch canopy carried on pierced, Gothic iron uprights. This elevation forms one side of a three-sided service court, which is paved in cobbles with a central drain; to the rear is a one and a half-storey range, with gabled projections and a small, gabled dormer window; the right side of the court is defined by a single-storey range with a wide, projecting gabled timber canopy on timber uprights, beneath which are paired plank doors. The western end of this range is a low gable. Running parallel to this range, but extending less far to the west, is the higher range formerly the coach house, of one and a half storeys. This has a single window in its gable end. Its inner side has a former taking-in door in a gabled opening, related to its former use as a coach house. The north side of the range has a wide gable, projecting slightly, with a gabled, Gothic timber porch attached. This is built over the remains of a classical pediment which must relate to the form of the building prior to the 1880s remodelling. The rear of this range is formed from a main range facing west, with a gabled cross-wing. The elevation is irregular, with a central, projecting gabled bay with lower flanking bays, and an additional lower bay with varying floor height to the right. This is joined to the northern end of the garden front of the main house by a castellated screen wall which turns through ninety degrees. This includes two modern windows. The area behind the walls, formerly a service yard, has been roofed to create additional service rooms within.

INTERIOR
The principal rooms in the 1880s ranges, and the entrance hall in the 1846 range, have an extensive and elaborate Domestic Revival style decorative scheme. The stair hall forms the centrepiece, with decorative elements across all surfaces. This is a fully-panelled room, in dark, unpainted timber, with linenfold panels with elaborately-moulded rails, stiles and muntins, and a frieze of carved panels. The upper, pointed-arched lights to the windows include painted glass with various floral and foliate motifs. The compartmental ceiling is also panelled, between elaborately-moulded beams. Doors are also linenfold panelled, and set in deep, panelled doorcases. The panelling incorporates a large marble fireplace with relief carving around a broad, two-centred-arched opening. A broad, large-scale open-string staircase rises to the first floor; this has pairs of barley-twist balusters to each tread, and Gothic style carved newel posts. To the rear of this room runs a hallway with panelled doorcases, a closed double doorway to the adjacent room. The floor is laid with polychrome tiles. The room to the east of the hall, latterly used as a hotel reception, has a heavily-carved Jacobethan style fireplace, panelling to dado height, and four-centred-arched niches with moulded beads. A broad, four-centred-arched opening in the south wall is filled with a screen of matching panelling divided into double doors. The room has a moulded cornice. To the west of the stair hall, the original 1846 range retains its mid-C19 decorative scheme. The rooms have moulded skirtings, chair rails, and cornice, and panelled window reveals with shutters. The principal room in this range has a deep and elaborate cornice with tiers of foliate and classical motifs. The beams have moulded plaster finishes. At the southern end of the range is a modern conservatory, reached through a resited door with coloured glazing, brought from elsewhere in the house. The service rooms in the centre of the house are a mixture of rooms from the 1840s and the 1880s; they include a pantry lined in glazed brick, and other ancillary spaces. There are two secondary staircases, probably one from each main phase of development; each is enclosed, with plain handrails. The rooms tucked behind the screen wall to the garden were created in the later C20 when the space was roofed over, and all their interiors date from this period.

The first-floor rooms above the main ranges are reached from the large, galleried landing opening off the main stair, which has a large window with stained glass, and a balustrade matching that to the stair. Half-glazed double doors with coloured glass including roundels of the seasons lead to a rear corridor. Windows in the first floor mainly have deeply-splayed, panelled openings with shutters. There are moulded cornices through all the rooms, and panelled doors of varying degrees of elaboration. Some rooms have inserted en-suite bathrooms, one or two bisecting windows. Fireplaces have largely been removed, but chimney breasts remain. A stair to the attic rooms in the 1880s range rises in two stages from the centre of the building; the closed string stair has turned balusters and Gothic newels, and is steeply ramped as it turns through 180 degrees. The attic rooms have similar but slightly simpler treatment to those on the first floor. They include some small closets.

Adjoining the house at the northern end are the additional service buildings, including the former cottage, coach house and stables. These were converted to become additional hotel accommodation in the early C20, and their finishes date largely from this period. On the ground floor, a long corridor runs through each arm of the L-shaped range, with rooms ranged along either side. The corridors have a chair rail and Lincrusta wallpaper below. Doors are panelled examples with moulding. Rooms have simply-moulded cornice. Windows have deep, panelled reveals with shutters. The stair has a stocky Gothic newel with plain stick balusters. One ground-floor room retains a plain timber fire surround. The first floor rooms include two similar rooms above the former stables or coach house, each of which has a small fireplace within a plainly-moulded timber surround, and a deep window with a matchboarded window seat. Another first-floor room has a simple marble surround. Attached to this range and forming one side of the inner service court is a single-storey range whose rooms are accessed only from the outside, two of which were formerly cold stores.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES
At the rear of the house, marking the extent of the terrace in alongside the garden front, is a BALUSTRADE of stone vase balusters with vase finials. At its western end, this continues as a broad, low rubble stone WALL which is paired to the rear by another similar wall, creating a curving walkway to accommodate the fall in the ground level at this side of the house. The wall has flat coping stones and terminates in broader, square coping.

The entrance to the drive from Stowe Road in the west is marked by a pair of GATEPIERS, built in stone, of square section, with pyramidal caps. A similar pair of GATEPIERS marks the entrance to the service court at the side of the house from the access drive.

History

The area in which Lindors stands was settled from the C14, as Lindhurst. The Lindors estate was bought in 1846 by James White, a local land agent from Coleford, who then built a new residence for himself, possibly incorporating some fabric from a C18 house which formerly occupied the site. The house built by James White and named The Lindors (or Lindors House) was described in detailed sales particulars of 1873. The house, which stood within over 22 acres of pasture and ornamental woodland, was “replete with every convenience, and in perfect order”. The ground floor had an entrance hall, large dining room, a drawing room with a bay window, a breakfast room, kitchens, larder and butler’s pantry. Five best bedrooms and a bathroom occupied the first floor, with five further bedrooms above. There were further ancillary spaces and a six-roomed cottage alongside the house, together with stables and a coach house, as well as estate cottages and agricultural buildings. The house was built with the Mork Brook culverted beneath it, to provide water for the house. This managed water supply reputedly also later provided hydro-electricity for Lindors, though no evidence of any plant associated with this use remains.

In the 1880s, following a significant flood of the Mork Brook, Lindors was repaired, extended and altered by Algernon Strickland, a banker and magistrate, the then-owner, with the alterations including the addition of new rooms on the east and west sides of the house, and the joining of the main house with the ancillary ranges to the north, which were also extended. The rear wing of the 1846 house was refenestrated to match the Tudor windows in the new work adjoining, and the room at the eastern end of the range was refitted as a grand entrance hall with a decorative scheme matching that in the new rooms. The chimneys of the 1846 range were replaced with tall, diamond-set clustered stacks in brick to match those on the new ranges. The result is a distinguished, picturesque and rambling, Tudor-Gothic detailed country house.

The work was designed by architect William Taprell Allen, FRIBA, (b.1850), son of the vicar of St Briavels, who had been in partnership with Francis Dollman, ARIBA, from 1874-8, and in sole practice from 1879. The Strickland family moved to London shortly after the work was completed, and the house was taken on in 1890 by Frederick Martin, a young, retired woollen manufacturer from Huddersfield, who lived at Lindors with his wife and three sons, and nine domestic staff. Frederick converted the nearby Mork Mill into a coach house and stabling, and turned over the former coach house and stables alongside the house to additional service rooms and accommodation for staff. The Martin family remained at Lindors until 1926, and the following year the estate was sold at auction, described as “Most suitable as a Residential Hotel or Public Institution”, although in fact it continued in use as a family home until about 1947, when Lindors Country House Hotel was advertised as a holiday hotel in newspapers as far afield as Derby. It has continued in the same use, latterly known as Dean Valley Hotel. Various alterations were made in the later C20 and early C21 in connection with the building’s use as an hotel, including the insertion of en-suite bathrooms.

Reasons for Listing

Lindors, a smaller, picturesque and rambling country house with Tudor-Gothic details built in two phases in 1846 and the 1880s, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a carefully-detailed and well-massed composition of the 1880s by William Taprell Allen, skilfully incorporating the earlier house and service range of 1846, whilst retaining the character of the earlier buildings;

* for the survival in the 1880s ranges of an extensive Tudor-Gothic decorative scheme of clear quality in design and execution, and the retention of the more delicate, classically-inspired 1840s scheme in the principal rooms in the garden range;

* for the well-preserved evidence of the building’s evolution, from a small country house to a much larger home with extensive service accommodation, and later an hotel;

* for the remarkable lack of alteration, and overall level of survival, especially given the site’s long commercial use.

Historic interest:
* for its illustration of changing tastes in design through the C19, and the social changes which took place through the later C19 and earlier C20.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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