27, Boyn Hill Avenue

27/0/10007 BOYN HILL AVENUE 14-DEC-01 (South side) 27

GV II

Also Known As: Boyne Hill House, BOYN HILL AVENUE

House, now college building. 1854-57, with C20 alterations from conversion and from 1950 fire. George Edmund Street for Emily and Maria Hulme. Red brick with blue brick polychromatic decoration. C20 plain tile roofs. 2 storeys plus attic. EXTERIORS: NORTH, entrance facade has block to left with lean-to porch with half-glazed door flanked by single narrow window to right and two similar windows to left. To right a large segment headed 4-light casement window under pointed, blind relieving arch. Above two smaller 2-light casement windows also under pointed relieving arches, to left 2 upper C20 casements. Set back block to right has tall single light window and to right a 2-light segment headed casement with pointed relieving arch, then a central buttress with set-offs and beyond the main pointed arched entrance door with double plank doors and ornate iron hinges. To right a single upper staircase window of 3-lights in pointed arch surround, to left a small single casement and beyond a single and two 2-light casement windows. Set back to right another block with two single light casements and above a 2-light casement window. Set back again to right end block with irregularly spaced single light windows. WEST facade has 3 single light windows and a buttress with set-offs. SOUTH garden facade has large segment headed 3-light casement with C20 metal framed window above. Set back to right a 2 storey canted brick bay window with French windows on the ground floor and flat headed C20 windows above. Beyond an upper 2-light casement, then a buttress supporting a projecting first floor external chimney with truncated stack. Beyond to right a single storey canted bay window with segment headed casements, above 2 further C20 metal-framed casements. INTERIOR: Retains many original features including 5 chimney pieces, original doors, window shutters and plaster work. The dining room survives intact with original panelling, chimney-piece, coving and door. Main and rear staircases both survive intact. Main staircase has diamond pattern balustrade and arched balustrade to landings, newel posts decorated with leaf carvings. HISTORY: Designed for Emily and Maria Hulme (daughters of the Rev. Wm. Hulme, the founder of the evangelical Holy Trinity Church, Reading) who were generous patrons of Street's famous ecclesiastical group of buildings at Boyne Hill (as it was known in the C19) on the other side of Boyne Hill Avenue. It was instead inhabited by the Lamotte sisters, who commissioned the steeple and almshouse at Boyne Hill.

Group Value with the Street buildings across Boyn Hill Avenue: Church of All Saints (Grade I), the Vicarage Cottage, All Saints Cottage, the Parish Centre and No.1 Church Close (all Grade II*), and the former Infants School, the former almshouses, Girls School, and Vicarage Lodge (all Grade II).