Underhill

Underhill is an earth-sheltered house designed in 1969 and built between 1973 and 1975 by Arthur Quarmby as his family home. The structure combines stone and reinforced concrete, with external side walls formed by embankments featuring planting and rockeries, sections of sandstone brick walling, a turf roof with roof lanterns and ventilators, and aluminium windows and patio doors. It is single-storey.

Plan and Construction

The house sits just off-centre on its one-acre plot and is surrounded by landscaped gardens. Its principal elevation faces south-east across moorland and Ramsden Clough towards Riding Wood Reservoir and the Pennine Hills. The plan is irregular, covering approximately 3,500 square feet. The house is cut five metres into the rock and incorporates sandstone and reinforced-concrete walls that retain the hillside, with earth drawn back over the roof. A drainage system protects against water pressure by channelling water into a sump and pumping it to the corner of the site. Internally, the house divides into separate wings arranged around a large central living space containing a swimming pool.

Exterior

The house is approached from a driveway and garden path to the north-west. It appears as an irregular-shaped, raised, flat-topped mound with embankments of planting and rockeries, and a main octagonal roof lantern visible at the centre of the turfed roof. The embankment side walls were originally turfed and grazed by sheep, but these grassed sides were quickly replaced with planting.

The entrance path meanders south-east, then north-east, then south-east again to reach the main entrance on the north-east side. This entrance comprises a circular doorway eight feet in diameter, designed like a tunnel portal with curved retaining walls of sandstone bricks. Timber sliding double doors are set behind the frame so they appear circular from outside but are conventionally shaped internally. The door planks are arranged in a diamond pattern with studding detail and are interlinked by a medallion depicting the Hindu god Ganesh, representing good luck.

Adjacent to the main entrance, the mound projects north-eastward at a slightly lower height. This projection contains the kitchen wing internally, with two ventilators atop the turfed roof. The north-west side forms a rockery, while the south-east side, overlooking a patio terrace and the children's wing, consists of a sandstone brick wall incorporating a doorway with a replaced uPVC door (not of special interest) and a window serving the utility room and kitchen respectively.

The children's wing is set at 90 degrees to the kitchen wing and is also slightly lower than the main house. Patio doors lead from the children's playroom/lounge onto the terrace, originally enabling Jean Quarmby to supervise the children from the kitchen. The children's bedrooms are located on the south-east side of the wing, forming part of the principal elevation, and are denoted externally by a wide horizontal mullioned window serving the two bedrooms.

The main central part of the principal south-east elevation is formed of a sandstone brick wall with a single massive 20-foot-long horizontal window opening containing aluminium patio doors (replaced in the 1980s) leading onto a flagged patio terrace and garden. Projecting forward to the left is the master bedroom wing, which appears as a planted embankment similar to the children's wing, with a large recessed horizontal window lighting the bedroom. At the centre of the master bedroom wing's south-west return embankment are patio doors accessing a small patio terrace. Set to the right of the main south-east window and built into the children's wing embankment is a flight of sandstone steps leading up to the various turfed roof levels.

Atop the children's wing roof is a small plastic viewing/observation dome and a bathroom ventilator, with two ventilators atop the slightly higher kitchen wing. Another short flight of stone steps leads from the children's wing onto the main roof, which includes the master bedroom wing at the south corner. The main roof has a large octagonal roof lantern at its centre, installed around 1990 as a replacement for the original Perspex lantern. This lantern lights the central swimming pool and is topped by a spherical weather vane finial. Surrounding the lantern at four corners are ventilators with domed caps (fans beneath these vents have never needed to be used). Two smaller pyramidal plastic roof lanterns lighting the music room and guest bedroom sit atop the north-west side of the roof, along with a ventilator above the guest bathroom. At the west corner of the roof is a salvaged chimneypot serving the house's cave below, which has an open peat fire. Atop the master bedroom wing roof is a small plastic viewing/observation dome and a bathroom ventilator in the same style as those on the children's wing.

Interior

Internally, the stone and concrete structure incorporates insulating blocks that have been screeded over, with insulation and waterproofing added on top. The walls are mainly plastered, but the principal central living space and the cave both incorporate exposed stone walls. Stone flag floors (salvaged from local industrial buildings being demolished in the 1970s) exist throughout the central living space and in the cave, while the bedrooms are carpeted and the kitchen and utility room have linoleum flooring. All doors leading off the main living space are ledged and braced pine doors, while other internal doors are painted hollow-core doors. Most internal doorways have overlights above.

The main entrance leads into a small entrance hall with no natural light, which has a shower room and cloakroom at the north-west end and a door to the west corner leading into the guest bedroom. Ledged and braced pine double doors at the south-east end of the hallway lead to a short flight of stone steps descending into the vast main open-plan living space (the rooms on the north-west side of the house are all set on a higher ground level), which measures approximately 50 feet by 40 feet and is set upon different floor levels to create separate rooms or zones, with a swimming pool as its centrepiece.

The swimming pool area is sunk below the floor level of the surrounding living spaces and incorporates a curved south-west end wall of exposed stonework. The pool, 36 feet long in total, takes the form of two interconnecting circles in an hourglass design. The north-east end is larger and is surrounded by four vast stone arches with plastered spandrels that support the house's concrete T-beam roof structure. Above the arches is a large octagonal roof lantern, a replacement from around 1990. An arched timber-slat bridge without balustrading crosses the pool's narrowest point where the two shapes interconnect, and at the north-east end is a low-level diving board and ladder entry point. Located in the four corners of the roof above the pool and surrounding the lantern are four fans originally designed to prevent damp, but they have never needed to be switched on as the living space's atmosphere regulates itself at 55% humidity and approximately 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

The lounge area lies off to the south-east side of the swimming pool, connected by a wide flight of three stone steps. A 20-foot-long window with aluminium patio doors occupies the south-east wall, providing views over the garden and across Ramsden Clough to Riding Wood Reservoir. The dining area lies off to the north-east side of the swimming pool and is treated as a room with walls to the side and rear but open-sided onto the pool. A doorway in the dining area's north-east wall provides access into the kitchen and utility room; the kitchen units are all replacements from around 1991 and are not of special interest.

Two interconnecting flights of stone steps without balustrading lead up from the north-west side of the poolside to a walkway accessing a music room and the cave. A further cast-aluminium spiral stair in the style of a late-19th/early-20th-century cast-iron stair also provides direct access from the poolside up to the cave at the south-west end. The cave is a dome-shaped room with exposed stone walls and a spray-foam coating covering its concrete ceiling. An open peat fire is incorporated on the north-west side (Arthur Quarmby holds the title of Constable of the Graveship of Holme and his family has ancient rights to cut peat from the moorland), and an unglazed, low-level, irregularly shaped window opening with a stone trough at its base exists in the south-east wall looking through to the swimming pool, adjacent to an irregular-arched open doorway. The music room is accessed off the walkway through wide sliding ledged and braced pine doors that enable the room to be shut off from the main living space and swimming pool. The room is top-lit by a small pyramidal roof lantern, and a doorway in the north-east wall provides access through to the guest bedroom, which is also top-lit by a roof lantern in the same style and has access off the entrance hall.

The master bedroom wing occupies the south-west corner of the house and is accessed through a doorway at the south-west end of the lounge area adjacent to the swimming pool area's curved south-west end wall. The wing is on a slightly higher floor level than the lounge area, and the doorway is accessed via a low flight of stone steps that follow the curved line of the adjacent wall. The master bedroom wing contains a bedroom with built-in wardrobes and dressing table, a shower room (originally a bathroom containing a circular sunken bath) and separate toilet (the modern replacement bathroom sanitary ware is not of special interest), and a lounge/study containing a Jacob's ladder against the south-east wall that provides access up to a small viewing dome. A large horizontal window in the bedroom set just above the bed allows south-east views across Ramsden Clough to Riding Wood Reservoir.

A doorway at the north-east end of the lounge area accesses the children's wing, which occupies the north-east corner of the house and is similarly designed to the master bedroom wing with a bathroom (the modern replacement bathroom sanitary ware is not of special interest), two bedrooms, and a lounge/playroom with a Jacob's ladder alongside the south-east wall that provides access to a small viewing dome. Also in keeping with the master bedroom wing, each bedroom has a square window (the windows appear as a single mullioned horizontal window externally) immediately above the bed that provides south-east views across Ramsden Clough to Riding Wood Reservoir. The children's wing, which also contains the swimming pool's plant room, is set on slightly lower ground than the lounge area and has a short flight of steps at its entrance.