Bentley Farm, With Attached Walls And Gatepiers

Bentley Farm is an 18th-century house that now serves as the Gerald Askew Wildfowl Reserve with residential accommodation above. The original farmhouse consisted of a central range of two storeys and attics spanning six bays, constructed in red brick with grey headers and a hipped tiled roof punctuated by large brick chimneystacks. The windows were multipane sash windows with tripartite examples at the ends. Originally the house featured plain eaves, five hipped dormers, and a porch with Tuscan columns.

Between 1960 and 1971, architect Raymond Erith undertook a comprehensive transformation of the property. In 1960-1 he added an east Drawing Room wing in Palladian style. He then added a west Bird Room wing between 1969 and 1971 to house a collection of bird pictures. These extensions match the height of the original centre but are only one storey, with vertical areas of flintwork on the front elevation and rendered niches marking the junctions with the earlier house. Each wing contains three windows, with the centre window being Venetian. A continuous timber entablature unites the old and new parts on the same building line.

Erith substantially remodelled the 18th-century house's exterior details. He converted the five existing hipped dormers into pedimented dormers, added a continuous timber cornice, and replaced the columned central portico with a doorcase featuring a curved open pediment with ball finial, brackets, and moulded architrave. The rear elevation displays three gables, two in English bond brickwork, with sash windows and two cast iron casement windows. A wooden verandah designed by Quinlan Terry in 1978 stands at the rear.

An attached U-shaped wall to the east encloses the house within a south-facing courtyard, separating it from the gardens beyond. This wall extends eastward to a pair of square red brick gatepiers with stone tops and ball finials, which give access to the wildfowl centre. The formal gardens are entered through a centrally placed gate in the eastern wall, with piers topped by urns. An attached wall to the west links the house to the barchessa (cart lodge).

The interior retains significant 18th-century features in the central ground floor room, which displays exposed ceiling beams and a wide bressumer. The first floor preserves some 18th-century floorboards, and the attic contains visible 18th-century collar beams. The lower flight of the central staircase with balusters and Tuscan column newels may be original or an import. The flight from the first floor to the attic has stick balusters and urn finials to the newel posts.

From 1945 onwards, Mrs Gerald Askew remodelled the interior, installing French marble chimneypieces throughout. The ground floor features a bolection moulded marble fireplace, while the sitting room contains a marble fireplace with a palmette and cornucopiae panel with end pilasters. The first floor study has a marble fireplace with reeded pilasters and floral paterae, and the sitting room a marble fireplace with a central wreath and swag panel and end pilasters.

Raymond Erith's first-floor Octagon room, created between 1969 and 1971 in an existing space, features timber Tuscan columns and panelling. The ground floor sitting room contains a pair of fitted bookshelves by Erith. The East wing Drawing Room displays a carved stone chimneypiece by Erith with eared architraves and console brackets. Ionic columns with enriched volutes frame the Venetian window, and an ornamental centre panel to the ceiling features swag decoration around the border. The walls are hung with 17th-century Chinese wallpaper from Hatfield House. The west wing Bird Room contains an Italian Renaissance style chimneypiece by Erith with veined marble inset and white marble surround with console brackets and the Askew coat of arms, based on a simplified chimneypiece in Palladio's villa at Maser. A black and white marble floor with octagonal patterns covers this room. The Venetian window features Tuscan columns and an ornamental centre panel to the ceiling with pulvinated frieze bands. Doors throughout are of two and six panelled types.

The property underwent systematic expansion driven by Gerald Askew's wildfowl collection. Askew began collecting in 1960, and by 1966, when the collection opened to the public, it had become the largest private wildfowl collection in Britain. A detached cart lodge with Tuscan columns was added in 1962. Garden walls and gatepiers followed in 1965, and entrance gates and terrace steps in 1967. The transformations were executed over a twelve-year period, reshaping both house and grounds. The commission brought out Raymond Erith's imaginative qualities and skill, introducing French and particularly Italian influences to the house and its setting. The property forms a group with outbuildings also added by Erith and represents a significant example of mid-20th-century country house adaptation and extension.