Littleholme Cottage

Littleholme Cottage

A vernacular revival style gardener's cottage designed by C F A Voysey in 1911 for Littleholme on Upper Guildown Road. The cottage was commissioned by G Muntzer, a builder and interior decorator who had worked on some of Voysey's Surrey houses. Voysey estimated the cottage would cost considerably less than the garden at £300. The signed original plans and drawings by Voysey survive.

The cottage is constructed of whitewashed roughcast with Bath stone dressings and a plain tiled roof featuring a central brick chimneystack with open panels at the top revealing four terracotta chimneypots.

The original plan comprises a lobby entrance house of two bays and one storey with attics in the gable ends, an almost central entrance and chimneystack, and two main rooms on each floor.

The south-east or entrance front displays two hipped dormers (not shown in the original elevational drawing) and an unusual small central window to the upper floor just below the eaves lighting the staircase. The ground floor has two triple windows with wide Bath stone surrounds merging into a central Bath stone arch, topped with tile-on-edge dripmould. The original door features three panels at the top, nine small glazed panels to the centre, and a large panel at the base. The north-east end is gabled with kneelers of stepped tiles-on-edge and a dripmould of tiles-on-edge above the triple window to the upper floor. Below is a drip moulding of tiles-on-edge over the windows, curving above the kitchen doorcase which contains an original door with two panels, three small glazed panels, and hinges with spade decoration. The south-west end has a similar gable with tile-on-edge decoration above the upper floor window and two single light windows to the ground floor, each with tile-on-edge dripmoulding. The rear elevation is concealed by a later twentieth-century extension.

The ground floor interior contains a central lobby with a straight flight staircase opposite. Plank doors with large iron hinges of spade decoration are present throughout, and window cills retain original glazed green tiles. The lounge to the south-west has a fireplace with a round-headed brick arch. The kitchen to the south-east features an axial beam and cambered opening to the fireplace. The south-western bedroom retains an original fireplace with a painted brick round-headed arch and iron firegrate.

During the Second World War the main house, Littleholme, was requisitioned by the Home Office and the Muntzers moved into the gardener's cottage. On the 1916 Ordnance Survey map the building is shown rectangular in shape. An extension had been built by the 1962 Ordnance Survey map where the plan is shown as an L-shape. The later twentieth-century porch and extension to the north-west are not of special interest.

The cottage bears the hallmarks of Voysey's style, with roughcast walls, gables, and leaded light windows, and groups with the main house, Littleholme, which Voysey built in 1907.