Tree Cottage And Artist'S Studio

Tree Cottage and Artist's Studio, Bethesda Street, Basildon

Tree Cottage is a vernacular cottage dating from the late 17th century, with 20th-century extensions and alterations. An artist's studio from the mid-1930s stands to the north-west of the cottage in its grounds.

The cottage is built using timber-framing with Flemish and Stretcher bond brickwork and tile roofs. Its core is a post-medieval timber-framed cottage originally configured as a two-up, two-down dwelling. The original building lies to the north-east and has subsequently been extended to create a two-pile house with a double-pitched roof.

The main elevation faces south-east onto Bethesda Street and has a 20th-century rain-hood over the front door. The original two-cell cottage to the north-east was extended to the rear (west) in the 20th century, after 1912, creating the two-pile form. An additional bay was added to the south of the original cottage, and a single-storey kitchen and bathroom extension added to the south-west in the 20th century. Two chimney stacks serve the building: a corner stack in the study at what would have been the south-west corner of the original cottage, and an end stack with bread oven on the north gable. This bread oven is of circular form with a corbelled brick roof and was originally protected externally by a hipped tiled roof supported on timber piers. The somewhat awkward position of the oven and its relationship to the chimney suggest it is a late addition. It may, in common with other bread ovens of this large size and date, have served a village bakery function.

The majority of the windows are late 20th-century uPVC replacements. Two older leaded windows survive: one in the north elevation to the west of the bread oven, and another that now lights a cupboard in the south landing. Gilbert Spencer described in his 1974 memoirs for the period 1936-1939 how 'several of our windows were newly leaded. With the exception of one in the old part of the cottage, which had G Evans 1888 scratched on it, we had them changed...' The window in the north elevation is therefore assumed to date from the mid-to-late 1930s. 20th-century dormers have been added to light the upper floor, the insertion of which interrupts a dentilled eaves band.

Inside, timber-framing is evident in the historic north-east core of the house, including wall-plates and clasped purlins, also mid-rails, thin scantling and up braces. Internal walls are plastered so it is unclear whether original panel infill survives, though this is a possibility. A pegged frame to the door between the hall and sitting room in the west extension has probably been relocated. An original chamfered axial beam in the sitting room, with wide chamfer, is probably 17th century. The staircase, which is oriented west to east, is of 20th-century date. It is therefore unclear how the upper floor was originally accessed; there could have been an earlier stair in the eastern pile of the house in the position of the present west to east landing, or simply a ladder providing access to the roof space.

To the north-west of the cottage stands a detached 1930s studio built for the artist Gilbert Spencer. This is a rectangular weatherboarded structure, oriented west to east with a pitched roof covered in diamond-shaped felt tiles. Large windows to the south and west, the latter floor to ceiling in height, are designed to allow the maximum amount of light into the studio. Both are timber-framed with multiple lights. The studio is entered through a simple plank door in the south elevation and the interior is a single space with panelling to dado height and a wooden floor. A modern lean-to shed has been built against the east wall but is not of special interest.

Tree Cottage originated in the late 17th century when the building consisted of a one-and-a-half storey two-cell house. A building is shown at the same location and alignment as the present cottage on a number of early maps, namely: the 1769 Fane Survey; 1809 Enclosure Award; an estate map of 1838 (drawn by Daniel Smith & Sons on the occasion of the sale of the estate by Sir Francis Sykes to James Morrison) and the 1840 Tithe map. Ordnance Survey maps are also helpful in showing changes in more detail. On the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1878 the cottage is shown as broadly rectangular but with a stepped north gable where the current chimney stack projects from the building line. There is also an L-shaped rear extension to the west, a small rectangular outbuilding to the east, and an even smaller example to the far west of the plot. A very similar arrangement is shown in 1899 although the L-shaped outbuilding has been reduced to a rectangular one. By 1912 only the small outbuilding to the east remains. This map sequence suggests that all of the extensions to the property — to the south, south-west and north-east — are later than 1912.

Between 1935/1936 and 1970 the cottage was owned and occupied by Gilbert Spencer and his wife Ursula. Gilbert Spencer (1892-1979) was a painter. He was born in Cookham, Berkshire and trained at the Camberwell School of Art, the Royal College of Art and at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He was primarily a landscape artist and was particularly celebrated for his rural and farmyard scenes although he also painted portraits and murals. He served in Macedonia with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War and was appointed an official war artist during the Second World War. Although not as well-known as his older brother Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) who is generally regarded as the most important British painter of the early 20th century (Stanley Spencer's Crucifixion (1921), The Resurrection, Cookham (1924-1926) and his nineteen war memorial murals decorating the Sandham Memorial Chapel, Hampshire (1926-1932) are among his most famous works), Gilbert was a painter of some repute. He was a Royal Academician, won prizes for his work including the coveted life drawing prize at the Slade in 1914, and held his first one man show in 1923. He taught at the Royal College of Art and was Head of Painting at both Camberwell and Glasgow Schools of Art, three of the leading art schools in Britain. Spencer painted a number of murals including An Artist's Progress for the Royal Academy restaurant, also for Holywell Manor, Balliol College Oxford (1936) and The Scholar Gipsy for the students' union at University College London (circa 1956-1958). He painted a number of scenes of Basildon and also its inhabitants and was much inspired by his locality. One such shows the back garden at Tree Cottage as viewed from his studio which he had built for himself in order to have space to work on his larger pictures and which he describes in his memoirs. There is also a self-portrait in the Royal Academy collection which was painted in his studio and entitled Activity at Tree Cottage No. 2 (1967). Other local images include a pencil drawing of Mrs Lily Evans (1967) which was exhibited at the Royal Academy and a painting of Hook End Farm. Gilbert apparently normally preferred to work out of doors but also painted in his cottage or in what he called his 'little Colt Studio'.

Gilbert Spencer's works are held in the collections of a number of major museums and galleries including the Royal Academy, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Imperial War Museum, Tate Britain and other city galleries throughout Britain. His best known painting is probably A Cotswold Farm of 1930-1931 which is in the Tate collection.