Entrance To The Pleasaunce

Entrance to the Pleasaunce, Overstrand, Harbord Road

Two sets of carriage gates with two pedestrian gates, dating to around 1900 and designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. The gates are constructed of red brick with stone dressings and wrought iron work. They are executed in English Baroque style, featuring stone bases and tall narrow attached pilasters crowned with ball finials. One carriage gate and its associated pedestrian gate are now blocked.

These gates form part of the entrance arrangement to The Pleasaunce, a major seaside residence begun in 1897 for Lord and Lady Battersea. Lord Battersea was a wealthy businessman and Liberal Member of Parliament who became Chief Whip in Gladstone's 1886 Government, created Baron in 1892. Lady Battersea was the eldest daughter of Sir Anthony de Rothschild of Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire, and a member of the prominent banking family. Both the Lord and Lady had strong artistic interests.

The house itself was designed by Lutyens early in his career. Unusually, the Batterseas insisted that recently built villas on the site be incorporated into the new house rather than demolished, resulting in a large rambling composition that Lutyens enhanced with architectural elements in mid-17th, late-17th, and early-18th-century styles. The house was substantially complete by August 1898, though Lutyens made additions and alterations nearly every year from 1899 to 1909.

Beyond the main house, Lutyens designed stables, cottages, a covered open walk, a chapel-like retreat for writing and contemplation overlooking the sea built for the poetess Emily Lawless, and gates in Moorish style, in addition to the entrance gates described here. The residence received royal visitors, including Queen Alexandra and her sister the Empress of Russia, who made an unexpected visit in 1911 from Sandringham.

The gates represent a stylish architectural solution to the practical problem of two driveways to The Pleasaunce converging onto Harbord Road, with the arched central pedestrian gate forming Lutyens's focal point to the composition.