Swiss Cottage at Shrubland Hall

An ornamental Swiss Cottage built around 1840 to the designs of Alexander Roos as part of the pleasure grounds of Shrubland Hall.

MATERIALS

The building combines a timber frame with a brick and flint base at ground floor. The roof is pitched and covered in pantiles.

PLAN

The internal plan was not available for inspection. There are two storeys with external access possible via galleries at each floor.

EXTERIOR

The principal elevation faces south. It is three bays in width and has a gallery at first floor. There are windows to the left and right of a canted wooden bay on both floors. The external wall is deeply recessed behind a two-tier verandah and is surmounted by a steeply pitched roof supported by three projecting brackets and terminated with scallop-notched timber bargeboards. The bresummer at the external face of the gallery is notched on its lower edge and ornamented with a continuous chevron or zigzag moulding and scalloped edge. The corner posts of the verandah are elaborately carved with a rectilinear barley twist. The balustrade consists of bottle-shaped splat balusters and a plain handrail. The base of the elevation has a rendered plinth with a scalloped detail. The wall surface is covered in white-painted render with red highlights framing the principal openings and the edges of the wall itself. Above the central bay an inscription in German blackletter font reads "Seid mir wil[l]kom[m]en meine theuren freunde / zur guten stunde fuhre euch das schicksal" (Welcome my dear friends / fate will guide you at the right hour).

The west elevation is set back from deeply projecting eaves supported on tarred pine posts. It has a brick and flint base at ground floor and tarred weatherboarded walling above. There are four ground floor windows and two at first floor, all in wooden frames.

The north elevation has a brick and flint base with a single window and door opening at the left hand side at ground floor and a brick coal-store on the right. A timber gallery with bottle-shaped splat balusters runs across the elevation at first floor where there is a central door with vertical cover fillets and windows on each side. Above the height of the wall plate the walls are covered in render wtih painted red borders. Two projecting tiled pentice boards project the wall from the weather.

The east elevation has a brick and flint base and, between the ground and first floors, a door with vertical cover fillets. An area of timber gallery has been lost that would have led to this door, accessed via a surviving external flight of steps at the north-east corner. These steps have an unusual set of diamond pattern splat balusters.

INTERIOR

Access to the interior was not made available.