Park Keepers Hut, Terrace Gardens

22/0/10165 RICHMOND HILL 22-JAN-04 Park Keepers Hut, Terrace Gardens

II Park keeper's hut, c 1887, in the Japanese manner, inspired by the Aesthetic Movement. Timber frame, weatherboarded on stone and brick base, with deep timber plinth. Fishscale tile roof of lightweight metal, probably zinc, the ridge pieces of cabled design. Symmetrical, single storey, the door beneath shaped apex flanked by flattened incised scrolls. Door, partly altered, in quarter moulded architrave. Vertically boarded lower panel under pair of rectangular panels each with diagonally set boards. Upper panel above moulded cill, possibly formerly glazed, now boarded over. Identical windows to front and flanks, that to right boarded up. Each with geometrical trellis of glazing bars, under shaped head with incised decoration, echoing the apex of the roof, and with shaped apron.

HISTORY: this is a rare survival of a Victorian park keeper's kiosk, designed in an unusual idiom. It can be compared with Thomas Jekyll's Japanese pavilion for Barnard, Bishop and Barnard, brass founders of Norwich, (formerly in a Norwich park but demolished, 1944). The type of roof is unusual in Britain, more commonly found on the Continent. The Aesthetic Movement of the later C19 confined itself in general to the fine arts, literature and music, rather than architecture, but was influential in garden circles coinciding with the increased availability of oriental plants. The park in which the kiosk stands, Terrace and Buccleugh Gardens, was opened to the public in 1887. Originally C18 private gardens, they were acquired for public use after the death of the Duke of Buccleuch in 1884 by the local vestry. Terrace and Buccleuch Gardens are included on the English Heritage Register of Historic Parks and Gardens at Grade II.

Terrace Gardens Hut 1887, Environment Trust for Richmond upon Thames (with bibliography)