House On Scolt Head Island

487/0/10004 19-OCT-04

BRANCASTER House on Scolt Head Island

II

Summer Warden's house. c.1926 by Edward Boardman. Weatherboarded, Norfolk oak, hipped shingle roof with gablet, and shore pebble and brick round chimney. PLAN Single storey, square plan with porch to front (south) and later outshuts on the back. EXTERIOR Porch with turned wooden columns and fretwork balustrading. Apron of beach pebbles and brickwork to front. House built on low stilts, but the foundations not inspected as the gap has been filled with corrugated iron to keep rabbits out. Wooden casement windows all original. Circular tall chimney at west end of beach pebbles with brick string courses. The chimney was struck by lightening and rebuilt, possibly in the `60s. INTERIOR Entirely wood-lined - floors and ceilings; single living room to east with chimney piece dating from the chimney rebuild, two small bunkrooms leading off to the east. Original doors and door fittings (one brass knob replaced with a plastic one). A later small bunkroom in outshut to rear, built of wood and wood-lined as the rest of the building. HISTORY The building was financed by public subscription, both the architect and local timber merchant meeting their own costs for the Norfolk Naturalist Trust who had just obtained Scolt Head Island as a nature reserve. (It was later taken over by the National Trust who lease it to English Nature) It has been very little altered since it was built and except for solar-powered lighting no modern facilities have been added. It has been built facing south back to the coast and with its back set into the dunes for shelter. This squat dark building with its distinctive chimney forms an important feature in the landscape. It is an unusually small building to be architect-designed. It was built for a specific purpose in a unique landscape and its survival with virtually no modern alterations makes it both historically and architecturally significant.