Details
FRINTON AND WALTON
1665/0/10031 AUDLEY WAY
30-AUG-07 4
"Seaspan"
GV II
House, 1934/1935, designed by Oliver Hill.
MATERIALS: Concrete, with tubular steel balconies; uPVC windows.
PLAN: The house is of two storeys, with a flat roof. It is L shaped, with a sweeping curve to the front elevation.
EXTERIOR: The house is painted white. The front elevation contains strip windows around the curve to ground and first floor, with regularly spaced vertical glazing bars. To the south-east of the curve is a garage with balcony over; the door to the balcony is narrow, with horizontal glazing bars. Beside this is a later single storey garage erected in the 1970s.
To the north-west of the curve are narrow doors to ground and first floor, one above the other, again with horizontal glazing bars. The upper door is flanked by side windows and fronted by a balcony with tubular steel railings. At ground floor level a curved concrete screen conceals the side passage: entrance to this is through a steel gate. The side elevation has three windows to the first floor and two to the ground floor, all triple glazed with vertical glazing bars, except for the narrow first floor window; there is also a triple glazed window to the first floor in the curve of the wall. The back elevation has an irregular stepped pattern of three triple glazed windows, and two slender windows to the ground floor. There are two single storey projections, the larger containing the garages, the smaller a back door porch and store. The original metal ladder rises from the garage roof to the roof of the house.
INTERIOR: The front door gives access to a hall with parquet floor, from which all other rooms on the ground floor can be reached directly. To the right is a long narrow lavatory, stairs and kitchen, to the left the L shaped living room and dining area. The front door has a port-hole window, and next to it is a similar window looking through into the garage. Immediately opposite is another in the door to a cupboard. The parquet floor continues into the living room, at the far end of which is a fireplace with a marble effect surround, edged in silvered trim. The dining area is connected to the kitchen by a small serving hatch. The kitchen is fitted with modern kitchen units, but retains its original tiles. Beyond the kitchen, on the opposite side of the back door, is accommodation for a maid, now used as a storage/utility room.
The stairs contain a series of curves: around the end of the wall at ground floor level, around the stairwell, and in the solid balcony and handrail where it turns around the stairwell to meet the first floor corridor: the window lighting the staircase has its original marble sill. There are five bedrooms set around the landing and corridor. The three south facing all have access to a balcony, with the south-east balcony shared between two. Two of these contain their original built in cupboards. In the bedroom with the curved windows, this broad sweep is reflected by a tighter curve in the opposite corner. Diagonally opposite, in the north bedroom, is a smaller curved window. The bathroom walls are covered in vitriolite tiles, not original to No.4 Audley Way, but reclaimed from another Oliver Hill house on the estate.
HISTORY: In 1934 the South Coast Investment Company Ltd bought 200 acres of land straddling the railway line to the north-east of Frinton. They proposed an ambitious development, the Frinton Park Estate, which was to include 1100 houses, a town hall, college, churches, a shopping complex, and a sweeping cliff face hotel. The 40 acres east of the railway line and closest to the sea was designated as a showcase for modern houses and Oliver Hill was chosen by the company as the principal architect for the estate, responsible for supervising its overall design and layout. Hill was insistent on the employment of a number of young, progressive architects, including Thomas Tait, Wells Coates, Maxwell Fry, Frederick Eschells, Marshall Sisson and others. By the end of 1935 the project had foundered. Many of the architects had already withdrawn, and Hill resigned in August of that year. Ultimately, the scheme failed because of the conflict between the idealism of the architects and the need for profit, and because of the difficulty of selling experimental design and new materials (such as concrete) to a suspicious and conservative public. Only about 40 modernist houses and part of the shopping centre had been built. Oliver Hill had designed 12 houses, of which 10 survive, including the estate office, known as The Round House, and No.55 Quendon Way, both listed at Grade II. No.55 Quendon Way is a smaller version of No.4 Audley Way, and both follow the standard design Hill developed for many of his Frinton Estate houses. Subsequent alterations to No.4 Audley Way have recently been reversed; these included the partition of the living room and dining area and the covering of the exterior with pebbledash.
After the Second World War the remainder of the estate was developed to a rather more modest plan.
SOURCES: Powers, Alan. 1989. Oliver Hill: architect & lover of life.
Country Life Magazine, Aug 17th 1935. A Planned Seaside resort. Frinton Park, Essex. Designed by Mr Oliver Hill.
Temporary File TF/S220-MR-SL1436. Modern Movement Houses in Frinton-on-Sea.
REASON FOR DESIGNATION DECISION: No.4 Audley Way is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It was designed by the eminent architect, Oliver Hill: Hill has several other listings to his credit.
* The design displays imagination and ingenuity in its use of space and detail.
* It is an early example of modernist architecture in England, using experimental materials, and is unusual as a smaller, more modest design which aimed to reach a wider audience and clientele.
* Its plan form survives intact, including accommodation for a servant.
* Much of its detail survives, including tubular steel balcony rails, floors, doors and tiling.
* It is of historical significance as part of the speculative, ambitious, but never completed Frinton Park Estate.
* It has group value with the Grade II listed Round House.
