Swiss Cottage And Generating House

A mid-19th century cottage ornée on the Box Hill estate. A 20th-century conservatory and decking on the east side and a link block to the north are not of special interest.

Materials and Construction

The cottage is built of unknapped flints with deeply incised lime mortar. It has local Greensand stone dressings and some shingle cladding on the south-west side. The roof is tiled with a series of gables, hips and half-hips featuring wooden bargeboards and finials. A massive clustered brick chimneystack rises from the centre, with stacks set diagonally, and a smaller similar chimneystack stands to the south. The windows are mainly wooden mullioned or mullioned and transomed casements.

Plan

The layout is irregular. The south section rises to two storeys with a basement beneath the sitting room. The north service end is single-storey.

Exterior

The north-west entrance front has a half-hipped gable with one tripartite casement window on each floor. Further south, a gable with similar windows has an attached wood and tiled verandah supported on rustic poles. The verandah floor is multi-coloured patterned tile. The main entrance beneath the verandah has a wide plank door with narrow sidelights.

The south-west side comprises two bays. The western bay is set back with tall ground-floor mullioned and transomed windows. The projecting eastern bay sits under a gable and features an eight-light canted bay window on each floor, divided by a deep shingled band, with a deep plinth, stone band and quoins.

The south-east side has an additional external entrance in the south bay. A flat-roofed conservatory in matching materials was built over this entrance after 1935, along with a large wooden platform supported on two flint-clad pillars. The adjoining bay to the north has a steep hipped roof with metal finial and a two-light casement on each floor. The next bay northward is lower—one storey and attic—with a gabled dormer featuring wooden bargeboards and finial, and a four-light window below. This elevation originally ended in a single-storey bay with half-hipped roof and three-light window, but a post-1935 single-storey link block faced in unknapped flints now connects the house to a former outbuilding, possibly originally a washhouse. This outbuilding is single-storey with a gabled roof and three-light window.

Interior

The main entrance opens into the staircase hall, which has a tiled floor, dado rail and an oak Jacobean-style dogleg staircase. The staircase features a carved newel post with knop, turned balusters with carved acanthus decoration and carved tread ends. Intermediate balusters have been removed.

The sitting room occupies the entire south side, taking advantage of extensive views over Box Hill. It is lined with full-height linenfold panelling incorporating Caernarvon arches supported on clustered pilasters at the three windows, and a built-in window seat to the bay window, also with linenfold panelling. The door has six matching linenfold panels. The panelling was probably originally varnished, but only the skirting and door retain this original finish. The north wall has a bolection-moulded fireplace with brick interior.

North of the staircase hall is the dining room, which has a cambered brick arch to the fireplace flanked by later wooden cupboards, and a tiled floor. A larder west of the corridor retains slate shelves. Adjoining the dining room to the north, the original kitchen has an exposed chamfered scientific kingpost truss with run-out stops.

On the first floor, the principal bedroom facing south does not retain any original features, but bedroom 2 has a mid-19th century wooden fire surround and elaborate cast-iron firegrate. Bedroom 3 has a smaller wooden fireplace with cast-iron duck's nest firegrate.

Subsidiary Buildings

In the grounds to the north stands the mid-20th century generating house erected by John Logie Baird to power his inventions. This is a two-bay structure with a light timber frame clad in either vertical or horizontal weatherboarding with a gabled tiled roof. The roof structure has a queenpost and purlins. Much of the wall frame has been replaced.

History

The land on which Swiss Cottage was built was owned by the Deepdene estate through most of the 19th century. The building does not appear on the Deepdene Estate Map of 1840 (based on the Tithe Map) but is shown on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1870. According to Geoffrey Hutchins in "The Book of Box Hill" (1952), Swiss Cottage was built as a shooting box by Mrs Hope. He also notes that from quite an early period, the cottage tenants were permitted to serve teas to visitors. R W Burns' book "John Logie Baird" (2000) suggests the cottage had once been the Duke of Marlborough's hunting lodge, but there was no connection with the Duke of Marlborough when the property was built. The hilly terrain is unsuitable for hunting large quarry, and the cottage has no extra facilities for hanging large quantities of game or accommodating extra guests, so it was more likely built as an estate cottage.

In 1912 the Hope family of Deepdene sold 230 acres of estate land, including the summit of Box Hill and Swiss Cottage, which was bought by the National Trust. Between 1929 and 1932, Swiss Cottage was rented by the television engineer John Logie Baird (1888-1946). He carried out experiments from here, including the transmission of radio waves to the roof of the former Red Lion in Dorking. A shed was constructed to house an electricity generating plant to provide power for his experiments. The "Noctovision" system was demonstrated in the garden, using infrared for the first time to enable ships to see each other's lights through fog. During his time at Box Hill, Baird made his first outside broadcast from the Epsom Derby.

In 1931 Baird married Margaret Albu, a concert pianist, in New York, and Swiss Cottage was their first home. During the Second World War, Swiss Cottage was occupied by Canadian soldiers for a short time. On 1 December 1988, during the centenary of John Logie Baird's birth, Margaret Baird unveiled a plaque at Swiss Cottage to commemorate their occupation of the cottage during some of Baird's most prolific years of invention.

The current outline of the building is similar to that shown on the 1870 and subsequent editions of the Ordnance Survey map, except that after 1935 a formerly detached outbuilding to the north-west was linked to the main house, and a raised terrace, partially occupied by a conservatory, was attached to the south-east.