Gate Piers To West Of Bentley Wildfowl And Motor Museum

LITTLE HORSTED

995/31/10082 07-FEB-02

HARVEY'S LANE (East,off) Gate piers to west of Bentley Wildfowl and Motor Museum

GV II

Pair of gate piers with gate. Designed 1966, built 1967, the work of Raymond Erith for Gerald Askew. Banded vermiculated flints on Portland stone base with stone dressings and tops. Their round form was dictated by the use of flints. Urn tops. Timber gate restored to its original design for the Millennium.

Raymond Erith extended Bentley Farm for Mr and Mrs Askew between 1961 and 1971, having been commissioned in 1959. These gate piers, like all his work, were carefully conceived as a whole; the use of flint reflects the use of these materials in the building of the eighteenth century listed house. Of the gate he wrote in 1966, 'What I intended was that it should be in the "horse" period, a bit smart and spanking but on the other hand rather bucolic and therefore in an older and sounder tradition.' The gate was installed the year Bentley Farm was first opened to the public.

Source Lucy Archer, Raymond Erith, Burford, Cygnet Books, 1985, pp.82-4