Details
249/0/10259 CAMPDEN HILL
14-OCT-04 1
II
Private House. 1914-15. Edward Prioleu Warren, FRIBA (1856-1937) for Colonel and Julia Hills. Small red and brown bricks (Thomas Lawrence and Sons' yard at Bracknell) laid in English Bond; Green Westmoreland slate roofs; wood framed casements with leaded lights. An Edwardian Arts and Crafts led interpretation, in an urban setting, of a late-C17 country house.
PLAN: Distinct family and service wings, with entrances to both from Campden Hill, and the family rooms at ground, first and attic floors oriented to the south garden front.
EXTERIOR: SOUTH garden elevation composed of advanced bays to each end, with quoins, flanking the central range, unified by continuous plat band and modillion eaves cornice. Advanced bays under hipped roofs with segmental headed dormer, 2-storey canted bays with windows to each face, and tall brick end chimneys. Central wing of 5 window bays has pair of 2-storey canted bays flanking narrow entrance glazed door under traceried overlight, keyblock dated 1915, and large central dormer with pediment and ionic pilasters, flanked by 2 smaller dormers. York flag stone garden terrace with brick piers with stone urns flanking entrance and linked by iron railings; to centre steps to basement access under brick rounded arch; terrace extends further at lower level with low brick wall and piers with stone balls flanking 3 semi-circular steps. NORTH elevation to Campden Hill is asymmetrical, the main feature being a colonnaded loggia, reached by frontispiece with arched opening under 1915 datestone, with paired wooden columns, leading to entrance vestibule framed by rounded arch with pilasters and keyblock. Also of note this side, the tall stair window. Servants wing to west in similar brick; entrance with flat roof canopy and leaded overlight.
INTERIOR: Richly decorated ground floor includes 6 panel doors in doorcase with cornice and pulvinated frieze, modillion cornice, and plaster ceilings. ENTRANCE HALL of 2 bays with groin vaulted ceiling; plaque by Edmond & Juliet Grove-Hills dated 1915 with poem. STAIRCASE HALL walls panelled with wood mouldings; dog-leg oak staircase in late-C17 style with open-string carved balusters and newels; fireplace with marble bolection moulding fireplace. DRAWING room along south side has plaster ceiling and original fireplace with bolection moulding, marble inset, metallic tiles and deep cornice mantle; central door to terrace. DINING room plasterwork ceiling includes initials of patrons; fireplace with original marble bolection moulding has altered frame over the mantle. FIRST floor in plainer decorative scheme; bedroom fireplaces have flat profile marble surrounds and shelves on consoles or pulvinated friezes; corridor has arched opening to each end with keyblock and pilasters, and an oculus. ATTIC and servant bedrooms have tile surrounds and cast iron registers; bell system in attic. SERVICE RANGE, primarily at ground floor, has chequerboard tiled floor and 2 oculi. Fittings include built-in wooden and glass cupboards in china and linen rooms also with round leaded interior window, slate-shelved pantries, dumb-waitor, secondary staircase with stick balusters and square plan newels with balls, wide wooden kitchen fireplace under raised lantern, safe, bell system, and leaded overlights to doors.
HISTORY: Construction of No. 1 Campden Hill began in 1914 to the designs of Edward Prioleau Warren, FRIBA (1856-1937) and was finished in 1915, after the outbreak of the First World War. The patrons of the house were Colonel Edmund and Julia Hills, the Colonel then being president of the Royal Astronomical Society. The site had formerly been part of the Phillimore Estate, and more specifically the grounds of Blundell (originally Bute) House, which was demolished c.1913. This enabled the construction of four new large Edwardian houses, one of which was No. 1 Campden Hill.
SOURCES: E.P. Warren obituary in JRIBA, 20 Dec. 1937; London 3: North West volume of Pevsner Architectural Guides, ed. Cherry and Pevsner; The Architectural Review: Recent Domestic Architecture [N.D.]; A. Stuart Gray, Edwardian Architecture: A Biographical Dictionary (Duckworth, 1985).
A remarkably intact Edwardian interpretation of the late-C17 country house, infused with an Arts and Crafts spirit, by notable architect E.P. Warren.
