Long Wall

TL 84 SE LONG MELFORD NEWMAN'S GREEN

922/8/10019 Long Wall

• II

House. 1963 by Philip Dowson, with Peter Foggo as associate, for S V Williams. Restored 1995-96 with some alterations by Hugh Pilkington. Brick and timber construction. Flat roof, with single projecting brick stack. Single storey pavilion with roof area approxiamately square on plan, with largely open plan interior. A white-painted brick spine wall passes through house and extends from either end, separating arrival area from the main house and garden; roof oversailing wall with deep lapped boarded fascia. Seven bay entrance front serving entrance area with opaque glazing in timber frames. Seven bay garden front all glazed with alternate windows full-height sliding timber frames. Paired timber beams extend from mullions to support cantilever. Mullions form roof supports on cast concrete pads, on brick base wall which extends to form boundary of terrace to the left. Glazing continues to side elevations, with large sliding glazed door to terrace. Long built-in bench on the integral external terrace. Interior: Fireplace in spine wall at back of living area. Other screens of unpainted timber continue the idiom of the house. Free-standing cooker unit and hood, built-in countertop and shelf below windows. A distinguished and much published weekend house of simple elegance. It is noted for its Miesian plan, which is regionalised and rationalised through the brick and timber construction. Dawson acknowledged a debt to the Barcelona Pavilion and to the language of Greek architecture, yet the oversailing roof is also reminiscent of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. Dowson intended the house to represent "simplicity in a meadow" and this he achieved supremely. The very rural setting is an important element to which the design responds. Pilkington's restoration and alterations have been sympathetic to these fundamentals. Sources Sherban Cantacuzino, Modern Houses of the World, 1964 Penelope Whiting, New Houses, 1964 Country Life, 25 February 1965, pp 432-3

Listing NGR: TL8741343607