Summary
Country house built about 1685, extended in the 1860s, and remodelled in 1909 by W C Marshall with internal work by Lawrence Turner, Robert Weir Schultz and F R Leach & Sons.
Reasons for Designation
Anstey Hall, a country house built about 1685, extended in the 1860s, and remodelled in 1909 by W C Marshall with internal work by Lawrence Turner, Robert Weir Schultz and F R Leach & Sons, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
Historic interest:
* it has a multi-phase history retaining notable elements from each phase, amounting to a country house of considerable architectural distinction.
Architectural interest:
* the principal façade demonstrates the harmonious proportions and symmetrical composition typical of a late C17 house, enhanced by the central entrance bay (modified in the first half of the C19) with its lofty engaged Ionic columns and finely moulded stone dressings;
* in contrast, the rear garden elevation conveys a sense of movement with its series of gables and the recessed centre which is partly infilled by the elegant double-height bow window added by W C Marshall in 1909;
* the 1909 scheme was carried out by some of the most accomplished architects and craftsmen of the period, befitting the status and distinction of the Hall and respecting its C17 origins in the style of the panelling and plasterwork;
* the joinery and ornate plaster ceilings are meticulous in their detailing and execution, demonstrating the very fine quality of craftsmanship for which this period of architecture and interior design is justly celebrated.
Group value:
* it has group value with the Grade II listed lodge which, along with the other (unlisted) associated outbuildings, form an important architectural and historic context for the Hall.
History
Anstey Hall was rebuilt on the site of a medieval manor house around 1600 by Edmund Bacchus who died about 1609. It was inherited by his son who sold it in 1637 to James Thompson, the son of a Cambridge tailor. The house was then rebuilt about 1685 by Anthony Thompson, Deputy Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire (1698-1701). Although the hall and cross-wings plan was rather old-fashioned for this date, in the opinion of David Watkin, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, the newly built Hall did not incorporate any of the earlier C17 manor house. Around 1750 the estate came into the hands of the Anstey family, who renamed it Anstey Hall, but they did not live there after the 1770s, instead letting the Hall with 85 acres to Nathaniel Wedd from the 1790s to around 1805, and to John Hemington of Denny Abbey between 1814 and 1836.
Sale particulars produced in 1829 show that by this time Anstey Hall had five bedrooms, numerous reception rooms including a hall, dining room, drawing room, breakfast room, conservatory, gentleman’s room/ library, and a range of domestic offices. An engraving shows the nine-bay north front with a slightly projecting central bay with engaged Corinthian columns and small dormer windows to the pitched roof. It was again put up for sale in 1837 by which time the north façade had been modified with a pediment above the door and segmental pediments to the dormer windows. The Corinthian columns had also been changed for engaged Ionic columns. From the 1840s the Fosters, a family of non-conformist bankers, resided in Anstey Hall. In the 1860s they built a large range of red brick stabling to the east, a water tower and a small lodge with ornate Ruskinian Gothic details. Later the Hall itself was extended eastward by three bays to a design matching that of 1685. This is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1886.
In 1909 Anstey Hall was extensively remodelled for Charles Finch Foster by William Cecil Marshall (1849-1921), a founder member of the Art Workers’ Guild who had worked in the offices of Basil Champneys and T G Jackson. Marshall carried out many commissions in Cambridge, including Leckhampton House in Grange Road (1881) and numerous university buildings. He designed the clubhouse and real tennis court in 1890 for the Real Tennis Club in Cambridge which is Grade II listed, and has numerous other listed buildings to his name, including the Art School in Harrow-on-the-Hill which he designed in 1896 (Grade II).
Working with Marshall at Anstey Hall were Laurence Turner (1864-1957) and Robert Weir Shultz (1860-1951). Turner established an outstanding reputation as a craftsman in the use of stone, wood and plaster, and he wrote the authoritative Decorative Plasterwork in Great Britain (Country Life, 1927). He is associated with six buildings on the National Heritage List for England (the List), including two Grade II listed war memorials and the Grade I listed War Cloister at Winchester College for which he did the coloured heraldry and symbols, lettering and stone carving. The Arts and Crafts architect Robert Weir Schultz worked in the offices of Norman Shaw and George & Peto, and his most important client was the Marquess of Bute. He has many listed buildings to his name, almost half of which are Grade II*. According to Pevsner, Schultz designed the gardens at Anstey Hall, although very little, if any, of his layout now survives. The main contractor for the building work was William Sindall who had established his building firm in the 1860s.
A list of Turner’s commissions on the website ‘Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951’ includes ‘decoration in plaster, wood and stone for Anstey Hall, Cambs (with William Cecil Marshall and Robert Weir Schultz, 1909-10)’. According to the current owner of Anstey Hall (2021), bills and accounts for the remodelling also includes work carried out by the Cambridge firm of decorative painters, F R Leach, one of the many firms that rose to national prominence as a result of the renaissance of crafts encouraged by the Gothic Revival. Frederick Leach banked with the Fosters and did a variety of work over many years for different members of the family at their various homes. He had died in 1904 so it was his three sons who were subcontracted by William Sindall. F R Leach worked in partnership with some of the country’s best known designers and architects, and the firm was responsible for some of the most accomplished ecclesiastical design and domestic decoration being carried out in Britain at the time. The firm’s pocketbooks and diaries for the early C20 were unfortunately destroyed in a fire in the 1970s so any evidence of exactly what work they carried out at Anstey Hall is no longer available from this source.
The remodelling work at Anstey Hall included the removal of the Victorian conservatory which had filled the recess between the two south wings on the garden front and its replacement with a double-height bow window. The main staircase was removed from the west projection on the south front and reconstructed in its current position; partition walls were removed to create the entrance hall out of two rooms; and the north-east ground-floor rooms were rearranged. The panelling in the ground floor study was designed and made by the Cambridge firm Rattee and Kett out of a walnut tree which had fallen in the garden. Founded by James Rattee in 1843, Rattee and Kett did some notable work in Cambridge, including the chancel screen in the Grade I listed All Saints Church by Bodley (1860s), and the base of the lectern in the Grade I listed King’s College Chapel.
Anstey Hall continued to evolve in the C20. By the 1927 Ordnance Survey map, a single-storey extension had been added to the east of the Hall to create a billiard room. It was then sold by P G C Foster to the government in 1941 and the partly derelict interior was converted into offices. During the Second World War, soldiers were stationed in Nissan huts within the grounds. In 1950 Anstey Hall was acquired by the Ministry of Agriculture for the Plant Breeding Research Institute which developed new plants, notably the Maris Piper and Maris Peer potatoes, named after the location of the Hall on Maris Lane. In 1998 Anstey Hall was purchased from the government by the current owner who runs it as a hotel and wedding/ conference venue (2021).
Details
Country house built about 1685, extended in the 1860s, and remodelled in 1909 by W C Marshall with internal work by Lawrence Turner, Robert Weir Schultz and F R Leach & Sons.
MATERIALS: handmade red brick laid in English bond with stone dressings and a roof covering of red plain tiles.
PLAN: Anstey Hall consists of the long principal range of around 1685 with two south wings forming a half H-shaped plan, the recess infilled in 1909, and a two-storey east extension added in the 1860s, further extended in the early C20.
The single-storey extension to the east dates to the early C21.
EXTERIOR: the two-storey house has an attic and basement. The hipped roof is surmounted by tall red brick chimney stacks with oversailing dentilled brick courses and square clay pots. The north entrance front is symmetrical, in nine bays, with the middle bay projecting slightly and elaborated with rusticated stone quoins and inset lofty engaged Ionic columns on rusticated pedestals supporting a pediment with a modillion-cornice; in the tympanum is a cartouche carved with the arms of the Thompson family. The wall continues up above the pediment as an attic with two pedestals on the face surmounted by pineapple finials. The central six-panelled door, approached up steps, has a stone surround and scroll-brackets supporting a segmental pediment enriched with egg-and-dart. The rest of the front flanking the centrepiece has a plinth with moulded weathering, rusticated quoins, a platband at first-floor level and a modillion-cornice all of stone with lead-covered box guttering simulating a blocking-course. The window-openings are uniform throughout, with stone architraves and sills, and contain double-hung sashes with thick glazing-bars, nine-over-six panes on the ground floor and nine-over-nine panes on the first floor. On the roof are six dormer-windows with segmental and triangular timber pediments alternating outwards from the centrepiece, dating to the Marshall alterations.
Adjoining the left (east) side is a C19 four-bay extension of two-storeys plus an attic in a similar style. It has a hipped roof at the east end with three dormer windows, the central one with a triangular pediment flanked by segmental ones. The six-over-six pane horned sash windows have slender glazing bars, gauged brick arches and stone sills. A small single-storey projection under a hipped roof extends at right angles from the fourth bay and is lit by three sash windows. It has been extended by a further two bays in the C20.
The south (garden) front has a continuous brick plat-band at first-floor level, and the two-bay wings have coved eaves-cornices and hipped roofs. The three-bay recessed centre, added in 1909, has a double-height bow window with a window to the left and a panelled, partly glazed door to the right. This is set within a semi-circular stone surround, framed by a triangular pediment supported by attenuated square pilasters with Ionic capitals. At first-floor level, the bow widow is flanked by two sash windows. The fenestration on the south front, redone by Marshall in 1909, consists of six-over-nine pane sashes with wide glazing bars, gauged brick arches and external blind boxes. Emerging above the recessed centre are the upper parts of the two original re-entrant projections; these have cornices and roofs similar to those of the wings. The two lofty chimney stacks rising in between these roofs are in part rebuilt. To the right (east), is the 1860s three-bay extension in a similar style with a hipped roof lit by two dormer windows with triangular pediments. The ground floor projects slightly forming a balcony with stone balustrades, an alteration dating to the early C20. The windows are multi-pane sashes, dating to 1935. The five highly ornate lamps attached to the south front are not original to the building.
The plat-band and eaves-cornice continue from the south elevation across the west gable end. This is partly concealed by a small single-storey extension with a half-conical roof, added around the early C20. The projecting chimney stack, which is probably of the same date, links with an original stack at eaves level; the former impinges upon the stone architrave of a small casement window on the first floor; the upper courses of the latter have been rebuilt.
Adjoining the east end is a single-storey, three-bay pavilion, added in the early C20, which has a hipped roof with exposed rafter feet. It is lit by six-over-six pane horned sashes.
INTERIOR: the interior alterations have been extensive, and the panelling, doors and fireplace surrounds in many of the rooms, whilst of late C17 character, date to the 1909 refitting by Marshall, working with the assistance of Turner and Schultz. The painting was carried out by the firm F R Leach.
The north entrance door opens into a large central hall, taking up five window bays, which has been created from two rooms. A carved wood panel above the door bears the date 1909. The marble floor is in the pattern carreaux d’octagones and the walls are lined with bolection-moulded panelling in two heights of panels with dado-rail and cornice, stripped of paint. The fireplace has a bolection-moulded wood surround with pulvinated frieze and cornice-shelf and an overmantel with a similarly moulded panel flanked by broad panelled pilasters under a deep panelled frieze and a return of the main cornice. It is temporarily covered by a salvaged fireplace and overmantel of early C18 date, added in the late C20.
The library, which occupies the two western bays, is lined with bookcases made in 2005 and carefully pinned over the 1909 bolection moulded panelling. It contains two restored fireplace surrounds, also similar to that in the hall, but of marble and wood and without the panelled frieze. They have salvaged elaborate cast iron grates and blue-and-white tiled cheeks. The elaborate plaster ceiling, created by Turner in 1909, has deeply raised plasterwork of flowers and foliage forming a geometric pattern of semicircles and octagons, half the sides of which are concave. The ceiling roses have scrolled pendants from which to suspend light fittings. The library and the hall both retain window shutters. The ornate cast-iron radiators are modern reproductions installed in 2009.
The room on the south front lit by the bow window (which replaced the conservatory between the south wings in 1909) is used as a bar. It has a dentilled cornice and is lined with square walnut panelling, designed and made by Rattee and Kent. It has been partly removed in one corner to create shelves. The bar counter itself is a reused hatmaker’s bench. The stone surround of the dominant Jacobean-style fireplace is carved with flowing foliage and is flanked by pairs of fluted pilasters. The panelled overmantel has pairs of attached columns with Corinthian capitals supporting a dentilled cornice.
The room in the south-east corner, formerly the dining room, has exposed intersecting moulded oak ceiling-beams and is lined in large part with reset early C17 panelling, seven panels high, fixed upside down. In the north wall is an early C18-style recess with an elliptical head flanked by round-headed doorways with panelled side-pilasters and moulded intrados with scrolled key-blocks, designed by Marshall in 1909. The early C18 fireplace has a flat panelled surround of stone with a key-block. In the corridor outside, the square panelling and Art Nouveau panelling are both salvaged, installed in the early C21.
The east extension, added in the 1860s, retains some features from this date, including parquet floors, a butler’s pantry with fitted shelves, deeply moulded ceiling cornices and several wood fireplaces, one with a carved frieze and an arcaded overmantel. The secondary dogleg stair has a panelled soffit, closed string and barley twist balusters.
The principal staircase, dating to 1909, is accessed from the main hall through one of a pair of elliptical arches with keystones bearing the head of a horned beast and swags in the spandrels. The open well stair has a quarter-pace landing, winders at the first turn, and a panelled dado. It has a closed string with barley twist balusters and substantial square panelled newel posts with shallow pyramidal caps.
The first floor has also had numerous alterations to its configuration, and much of the joinery, plasterwork and decorative finishes dates to the C20, some to the 1909 renovation. Numerous panelled window shutters and panelled doors survive, as well as three lugged doorframes with deeply moulded pulvinated friezes and broken pediments on the long, narrow landing, added in 1909. The long principal north-facing room (originally three rooms) is lined with C17-style panelling, made by the current owner, as are the two fireplace surrounds, although the inserts are older, one retaining an early C19 hobgrate.
The corridor occupying the two eastern bays of the C17 house contains a small lobby in an elaborate classical style, added in 1909. Each corner is defined by panelled, square, attached columns with moulded architraves from which spring semi-circular fanlights. These are filled with geometric tracery and have a moulded intrados with scrolled keystones, and foliate plasterwork in the spandrels. From here, the corridor along the east range is lined with panelling forming a series of semi-circular arches, all painted black and gold by the current owner. This form of panelling has also been added to the room in the south-east wing which has a delicately enriched plaster ceiling created by Turner in 1909.
