British Listed Buildings

Listing Text

31/0/10412 THE BISHOP'S AVENUE
20-NOV-01 East Weald

II



Private House (East Weald). 1910 by Henry Victor Ashley (1872-1945) and F. Winton Newman. Red brick with tile decoration, stone plinth, stone decorative panels, hipped green slate roof and large brick stacks. H-plan with large service range to north.

EXTERIOR: A large suburban house with a symmetrical entrance front of two storeys with attic. Central arched entrance with oriel window above: double plank doors set within Romanesque-inspired arched hood of brick voussoirs with billet moulding to outer register; stone reliefs of animal scenes within soffit, stone band of foliate decoration with animals above hood. Oriel window above with three six-pane windows set within a decorative lead surround. Entrance bay flanked by two bays per side with arched mullioned windows to ground floor, casement windows to first floor. Projecting gabled wings each side with channelled quoins, canted two storey bay with casement windows, segmental decorative tiled motif at first floor level, lead facing to parapet with moulded decoration depicting animal and rural motifs. Three pairs of dormer windows to roof at attic level. South garden front with projecting central and end bays, canted oriel windows to first floor of end bays. Former verandah supporting balcony (with decorative leadwork to facing) now infilled to left, and with modern fire-escape to right. Three dormer windows to attic roof, prominent chimneystacks with diapered decoration above. East garden front with disruptive modern addition to centre, otherwise intact with gabled outer wings with canted bays beneath weatherboarded gables (modern windows inserted), decorative tilework to aprons at first floor level. Gabled projection to centre with tall mullioned oriel window lighting stairwell. Service range to north designed in a matching but plainer idiom, with tiled gambrel roof, canted bays and with early garage openings to the west elevation.
INTERIOR: features of particular interest include a low groin-vaulted entrance hall decorated with square plasterwork rosettes to ribs of ceiling, carried on a heavily moulded Baroque-inspired entablature with screens to north and south ends. Main staircase of oak, with barley sugar rails and newels decorated with polyhedra, branching into a double staircase at half-landing level; flanking oak doors with circular Baroque decoration. Ground floor rooms of note include the former billiard room, in south-east corner, with coffered ceiling decorated with astrological panels, and a heavily moulded fireplace surround with over-mantel; former drawing room in south-west corner retains decorative plaster overmantel. Principal rooms to first floor have undergone considerable alteration but widespread survival of original joinery to lesser rooms in attic and in service range. Staircase in service range with unusual arched newel posts with circular devices.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: wrought iron entrance gates in Baroque style.
HISTORY: built as the London residence of William Park Lyle (of Tate and Lyle fortune). Designs for the house were shown at the 1910 and 1911 Royal Academy exhibitions. The house was later used as a home for the blind before becoming a hostel for Chinese government employees. The house embodies the tendencies in smart suburban house design of its day, drawing on a combination of historicist and Arts and Crafts sources of inspiration, and is particularly notable for its entrance front and the entrance hall. It forms one of the best houses in the Bishop's Avenue, a notable area of opulent suburban development, and embodies the affluent domestic taste of the Edwardian period.
REFERENCES: 'Academy Architecture' (1910); 'The Modern Building Record' (1911), 241-42; 'The Studio' (1915); 'Hampstead Garden Suburb Conservation Area. The Bishop's Avenue. Character Appraisal Statement' (London Borough of Barnet 1999).

Source: English Heritage

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under licence: PSI Click-use licence number C2008002006.