Stonecrop Including Garden And Forecourt Walling And Pond

Grade II* Listed Building

Stonecrop is a house designed from 1955 onwards by the architect Robert Harvey, who built it largely himself for his own family with help from relatives. The listing includes the house, its garden and forecourt walling, and a pond.

Materials and Construction

The house is built of coursed Cotswold stone with elm panels and a roof of cedar wood shingles. Plate glass is used extensively for ground floor windows. The eaves are lined with bare plaster, which also appears on ceilings inside. Wood panelling — pine, elm, or afrormosia — is used extensively for fitted furniture, walls, and ceilings throughout the interior.

Site and Plan

The house occupies a sloping site among orchards with extensive views over the north-eastern escarpment of the Cotswolds, which was fundamental to its design. The building projects into the surrounding landscape, with walls extending to define a terrace, steps, and raised beds on the north garden side, and enclosing walls forming a rectangular entrance court to the south.

The house comprises two wings set at right angles. The wing facing north-west towards the view contains the sitting and dining rooms, the main bedroom, and the kitchen. A massive, near-square chimney stack at the centre of the north-west front forms the focal point of both exterior and interior. From this, the second wing extends south-east at mezzanine level, housing bedrooms, the entrance, and garage, and appears to blend with the hillside, which forms the south-eastern wall of the car port and garage.

Walling and Roof

The walls are of gold-coloured Cotswold stone with deliberately rough texture. Harvey specified that stonemasons should not break the stone into chunks but produce long pieces, which he laid himself in courses with pronounced horizontal emphasis. Occasional blocks project from the wall plane, creating a texture similar to that of Frank Lloyd Wright's building at Taliesin East.

The roof of cedar wood shingles sweeps low to the entrance court and north-east front. The eaves extend well beyond the body of the house to provide sheltered porches for the front and back doors and a walkway to the garage, and to throw off rain without requiring downpipes.

Large planks of elm and plate glass are used extensively, and undecorated plaster appears under the eaves and throughout the interior. At ground floor level corners, sheets of plate glass are butted and glued without obvious structural supports.

The first floor has two bedrooms and a bathroom connecting to the main bedroom, mainly lit by bands of dormer windows. An angled wooden balcony with integrated seating extends from the main bedroom.

Exterior Description

The house is approached along a curving drive ending at the entrance court. The house forms the north-eastern and north-western sides of the court, with a retaining wall to the south-east. The garage entrance is at the south-east end, and there is a rectangular pond fed by a spout in the wall. From the court there is a clear view through the house diagonally and down across the sitting and dining areas to the northern view.

Ground floor walling is of stone, above which is a near-continuous band of plate glass windows.

The north-eastern front has a mass of shingled roof to the left appearing to emerge from the line of the hillside. The covered walkway connecting garage to back door is at centre, and at far right the two floors are evident as the house steps down the hillside. Between ground and first floor windows are substantial elm boards placed horizontally, which also wrap around the canted balcony extending at far right. The gable end behind has deep eaves with three gradually recessed bargeboards, a motif recurring elsewhere.

The north-west face has a near-symmetrical main block with a continuous band of ground floor windows, above which is a frieze of three heavy horizontal elm beams forming the first floor walling. Above this at centre is a dormer with slanting roof, and at the apex centre is the chimney stack. Recessed and at right is the single-storey continuation of the sitting room and conservatory.

Interior

The plan form exploits the sloping site with flowing space throughout the more public areas. The sitting room, the largest interior space, connects with the dining area, which leads through to the kitchen. This flow extends upward to the main bedroom at first floor level, which has a balcony.

The sitting room is set over three levels: an entrance balcony leads to the central floor area, which steps down to the dining area. It features crazy-paved flooring polished to a shiny finish, fine joinery, and bare plaster ceilings. The hearth lies to one side with a massive block of stone forming the lintel.

The staircase is set beside the chimney at the junction of the two wings, taking advantage of interesting cross-vistas offered by the contrasting floor levels. By contrast with the rough stone walls, wood is often used in large, polished pieces for cupboards, doors, or panelling. Several rooms have wood ceilings, and the children's room and attic space above the present playroom have exposed roof trusses of Harvey's own design.

History

Robert Harvey designed the house in 1955 for himself and his family. It was largely self-built with help from family and friends to offset costs, and incorporates a quantity of recycled building material including wood and plate glass, used partly due to shortages of building materials at the time and also due to financial constraints. According to Louise Campbell, after the foundations were laid and work had begun, costs threatened to get out of hand and Harvey himself took over much of the building work helped by his brother and brother-in-law, both accomplished joiners.

Harvey found it difficult to secure planning permission for many of his early houses, especially those around Ilmington in the northern Cotswolds, and consequently talked little about his work. He remained a strongly private figure until his death. However, in the late 1990s the importance of his work began to be recognised by Dr Louise Campbell at Warwick University.

The house was lived in by the architect and his family until its sale in 2006. Some kitchen and bathroom fittings have been replaced but otherwise the house remains largely as built.

Significance

Starting from an understanding of and respect for the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Harvey developed his own style combining native English materials with modern ones and exploring the possibilities of flowing space. His personal synthesis is expressed most fully in this, his own house, where quality of design, innovation, precise detailing, and intactness are all manifest. As a result, Stonecrop is generally considered to be among Harvey's very best and most carefully considered designs.