Summerhouse At Courtlands

PANGBOURNE

278/0/10018 TIDMARSH ROAD 28-OCT-08 Summerhouse at Courtlands

II Summerhouse, late C19, refurbished c2000. Detached single storey garden building in a rustic style.

MATERIALS: Wooden building with boarded cladding and applied split log and thatch decoration; thatched roof

EXTERIOR: Rustic corner-poles, close-boarded walls overlain with panels of vertical thatch and split logs in a criss-cross pattern to rusticate the exterior. Thatched pitched roof with added gablets and a thatched roof to the oriel window above the east entrance. All windows have leaded lights, most have a triangular apex, diagonal leading and alternating red and clear glass margins. Oriel east window and upper west window differ in having more decorative leading. The oriel has upper lights with painted glass with alternating green and red narrow margins and central panels decorated with foliage and birds typical of the Aesthetic Movement. Single entrance to the east comprising Gothic double plank doors with studs.

INTERIOR: A single room with close boarded walls and ceiling, painted white. Steeply pitched and slightly splayed ceiling profile. Vertical posts with curved braces support horizontal beams to the north and south. Recent wooden mezzanine, reached by a ladder, inserted at the west end.

HISTORY: The date of the summerhouse is not known with certainty although it is stylistically of the late C19. It stands in the grounds of 'Courtlands', an Italianate villa of 1860s date which was built for a widow, Mrs Henry Breedon. She was still in residence in 1891 according to the census records and is therefore likely to have been responsible for the erection of the summerhouse. It has been suggested that the building was made by the Ceasar family firm of Knutsford who manufactured rustic garden houses between c1890 and the late 1930s. Larger examples of this scale where supplied in prefabricated sections for assembly on site.

SOURCES: G Darley, Villages of Vision (1975)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The summerhouse at Courtlands, built in the late C19, is designated for the following principal reasons: * An unusual late C19 garden building; * A quirky and rustic design in the picturesque tradition; * A modest building which uses traditional materials to decorative effect. SU6337876048