Inverleith

Details

1188/0/10123 LIME TREE ROAD 11-FEB-04 13 Inverleith

II* House. 1908-9. By the architect Percy Morley Horder and his partner A.G. Wyand. Red brick, rendered and whitewashed to entrance and courtyard fronts and to ground floor of garden front, with tile hanging to upper parts of garden fronts. Plain tile roofs with various brick stacks with cornices. U plan forming three-sided courtyard. Vernacular revival style with leaded-light casements throughout. 2 storeys. Symmetrical entrance front has gables facing, various casements and a central carriage arch under a pentice roof. This leads through to the front door on the left, the staircase window ahead, the open side to right, and, in the service wing behind the two sets of garage doors. The front door is recessed within a tile-hung gable. The staircase gable is rendered and has a catslide roof, the end of this wing is tile hung and there are various casements. The garage and entrance arch wing is also rendered. The entrance court is a carefully considered and unaltered composition of gables, catslide roofs render and tile hanging. A second set of garage doors in matchng style is the only careful later insertion. The similarly unaltered garden fronts have similar elements and are designed with equal care with the emphasis on long horizontal lines with wide low casements. The elements include a square bay to the SE front and an open veranda and square bay combined under a catslide and pentice roof on the SE front. INTERIOR. The finely detailed and very little altered interior is an impressive combination of many C18 fittings and architect-designed ones in the C18 and Arts and Crafts styles. The entrance hall has many C18 6-panel doors leading to the staircase which has a balustrade in Chinese Chippendale style. There is a corner fireplace with carved decoration. The study, formerly dining room has complete C18 raised and fielded panelling, fine mahogany doors, and richly carved fireplace. The drawing room and billiard room also have carved fireplaces and carved and moulded wall decoration and have double doors opening to provide an interconnecting reception space with the entrance hall. The service areas have had some alteration but the butler's pantry survives, complete with cupboards and sink. The bedrooms all have fireplaces either C18, possibly reworked, or in Arts and Crafts style or in cast-iron in the former service rooms. A bathroom retains probably contemporary tiling incorporating a number of possibly much earlier Delft style tiles. The back stairs have a simple Arts and Crafts style balustrade. HISTORY. This house remains virtually unaltered since its publication in Small Country Houses of Today, a classic book of 1911, edited by Lawrence Weaver. The interior is an unusual combination of comparatively low rooms and genuine C18 fittings and others in the Arts and Crafts style. This surprising combination came about because the original patron was the Company Secretary of the Norwich Union Ins. Co. at the time the firm demolished its C18 premises and built a flamboyant Edwardian Baroque one in 1903-4. The house has carefully placed complete C18 panelling in the study, formerly the dining room, with fine C18 mahogany doors. Elsewhere there are carved wall enrichments, several C18 carved fireplaces or fireplaces re-using C18 carved mouldings and many C18 6-panel doors. Morley Horder has combined these with fittings to his own design to form an interior of great character with the staircase having a balustrade in the Chinese Chippendale style and other fittings in the Georgian and Arts and Crafts styles. The whole is a very distinguished house of the period. SOURCES. Weaver, L., ed., Small Country Houses of Today, 1911, republd 1983, pps.67-70. Muthesius, S., in Barringer, Norwich in the Nineteenth Century, 1984, pps.115-7.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

492745

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Barringer, C, Norwich in the Nineteenth Century, (1984), 115-117
Weaver, L, Small Country Houses of Today, (1911), 67-70

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