Summary
Arts and Crafts house built in 1908 to the designs of C. E. Mallows.
Reasons for Designation
White Cottage, an Arts and Crafts house built in 1908 to the designs of C. E. Mallows, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: it has a good composition that subtly draws on elements of the vernacular to evoke English architectural traditions whilst being assembled in a contemporary way. Many original fittings and fixtures survive, notably windows, doors and ground-floor fireplaces, providing a good example of a modest Arts and Crafts house which are relatively rare on the List;
* Interior: the internal treatment continues to draw on this vernacular vocabulary, using simple elements such as exposed structural bridging beams and plank and batten doors to convey the homeliness appropriate to a cottage. The use of vibrant green tiles for the fireplaces and window sills, along with the striking drawing room fireplace, show how thoughtfully Mallows managed to enhance a house built economically;
* Architect: Mallows is an architect and garden designer of national repute, with twelve other listed buildings to his name. He has a particularly close association with White Cottage as he designed it for his brother whose daughter later came to live there;
* Group value: it has strong Group Value with Mallows’ Three Gables, its registered garden and the two listed houses by Baillie Scott, altogether forming an nationally very important group of Arts and Crafts houses in Biddenham by two of the movement’s most talented and influential exponents.
History
White Cottage was designed by Charles Edward Mallows (1864-1915) in 1908 for his brother, Ernest Mallows, who ran the family business Kent & Gostwick, Boot and Shoe Makers in Bedford. It was subsequently lived in by Sybil Dorothy Mallows, daughter of C. E. Mallows, and it stayed in the family until 1989. White Cottage forms part of a cluster of five Arts and Crafts houses designed with integrally designed gardens in Biddenham by Mallows and M. H. Baillie Scott (1865-1945) built between 1899 and 1910. The two houses by Baillie Scott – King’s Close, II Main Road and White Cottage, 17 Church End – are listed at Grade II, as is Mallows’ Three Gables (1901). The garden at Three Gables is also registered at Grade II. Mallows studied at the Bedford School of Art and after several apprenticeships, including one at the offices of William Wallace and William Flockhart, set up his own practice in London. After travelling and producing measured drawings of English and French cathedrals, which won him the RIBA Pugin travelling scholarship in 1889, he returned to Bedford where he opened an office with George Grocock in 1895. Mallows also designed garden ornaments and pergolas for The Pyghtle Works, the acclaimed Bedford-based joinery firm for whom Lethaby and Bailie Scott designed furniture.
In 1898 John Parish White, the son and business partner of the owner of The Pyghtle Works, asked Mallows to design King’s Corner in Biddenham, which was the first of his garden houses. It was through White that Mallows received the commission for Three Gables, and presumably thus met his future wife, White’s daughter. Three Gables was the subject of an article in Country Life (Jan 29 1910) and was also chosen by Gertrude Jekyll for inclusion in Gardens for Small Country Houses (1912) as an example of the ‘close connection between house and garden.’ Thereafter Mallows received further commissions for houses with integrated gardens, most notably at Tirley Garth in Willington, Cheshire West and Chester, which he designed in the early C20. The house is listed at Grade II* and the garden is registered, also at Grade II*. Mallows has another registered garden (formal gardens added to the C18 landscaped park at Canons Park, Harrow) and twelve other listed buildings, mostly houses, all at Grade II.
A plan and perspective for White Cottage was published in Builder’s Journal and Architectural Engineer (1908). The intention was to ‘build as economically as possible, consistent with good work’. The contract sum was £400 and the builder was George Harrison of Bedford. The cottage was described as being constructed of common hard-burnt local brick covered in rough cast with a roof clad in local handmade red tiles. The external woodwork is of deal painted white and the internal joinery of canary whitewood, unpainted, with English oak beams. The ground floor consists of a linear plan with a kitchen, dining room and living room. There is a veranda on the north side of the kitchen, a scullery and coals on the west side, and a wc and store on its south side. The scullery appears never to have been built. The larder occupied a semi-basement in the stair projection.
The 1925 Rateable Valuation Act lists White Cottage as having a dining room, drawing room, kitchen, out barn and w.c., and three bedrooms upstairs with a bathroom and w.c. In 1933 the house was extended to the south-west by a gabled bay, with an integral garage and a bedroom and box room above. The alterations, which included adding two gables to the rear elevation, were carried out by Major John Victor Gedge (1903-2001) of 19 St Andrews, Bedford. Gedge appears to have been mainly involved in church restoration and quinquennial inspection reports. His collection of drawings is deposited at the RIBA Library and he is associated with one listed building, the Grade II* listed Manor House in Caxton, Cambridgeshire, a late C16 house with later alterations. The garage was subsequently integrated into the house prior to 1990. The kitchen has also been extended to the north-east (on the footprint of the scullery that was never built), integrating the attached two outhouses. A conservatory was added onto the rear of the original kitchen (after 1990) which is now used as a dining room. An opening has been made in the external wall of the original kitchen for double-leaf doors to the conservatory. Little trace of the original garden design remains except for the paved terrace and possibly the remnants of an orchard at the far end of the garden.
Details
Arts and Crafts house built in 1908 to the designs of C. E. Mallows.
MATERIALS: the house is covered in roughcast render and has a roof covering of red clay tiles with red brick chimney stacks.
PLAN: the house is located at the north-west end of a long garden plot. It faces north-west onto Days Lane and has an approximately rectangular plan. There is a one-bay, two-storey extension (added in 1933) on the south-west end, and on the north-east end a late C20 single-storey kitchen extension has incorporated the original wc and coal store.
EXTERIOR: the two-storey, asymmetrical house is in the Arts and Crafts style and has a hipped roof with bonnet tiles along the hips and three tall chimney stacks which have oversailing courses. The south-west stack is a later addition that closely replicates the earlier design. The fenestration consists of horizontal casements with a varying number of small, square-paned lights. The windows have lead drip mouldings and flush sills. The principal north-west elevation has, from the left, a low roof sweeping down to ground-floor level over the original coal store which is lit by a one-light window. The next bay has a four-light window and is slightly recessed at ground-floor level and thus has an overhanging first-floor, lit by a three-light window up against the eaves. This is followed by a two-storey gabled projection which houses the staircase and has a low three-light window which lights a semi-basement and a high three-light window. Attached on the right is a single-storey hipped entrance lobby which has a vertical plank door with moulded fillets, spur knocker and upright latch handle. This has a single-light window to the left and a five-light window to the right, all up against the eaves, as are all the windows directly below the roof line. Above the entrance lobby there is a four-light window. The bay to the right is lit by a five-light window and a four-light window above (added in 1933). The end bay, which is not original, is lit by a five-light window and a two-light window above to the right.
The south-east garden elevation has three gabled bays. The bay on the left was built in 1933 at which time the other two gables were added. The left hand bay has a glazed door with margin lights and a three-light window above. The two bays to the right are lit on the ground floor by five-light windows and above by a four-light and three-light window respectively. The roof then sweeps down to ground-floor level over the original kitchen. The kitchen window has been replaced by a double-leaf glazed doorway and flanking windows to provide access to the late C20 conservatory. The flat-roofed, single-storey kitchen extension on the gable end is partially hidden from view by a pergola (not original). The north-east gable end has a two-light window on the right side which originally lit the wc.
INTERIOR: this retains its linear plan form consisting of a corridor along the north-west front and rooms along the south-east overlooking the garden. The entrance door leads into a small lobby area, which has a later glazed door, and from thence into the hall. On the left is the staircase and then the former wc, now a bathroom. Along the garden front are arranged the original kitchen (now dining room), original dining room and drawing room. A door has been inserted in the external wall of the drawing room to provide access to the added to the south-west end in 1933. At the north-east end the former coal store has been opened up to form part of the late C20 kitchen.
The interior retains some good quality white canary wood joinery (unpainted), possibly by the Pyghtle Works, including plain skirting boards and vertical plank doors, ledged and braced on the internal face, with moulded fillets and upright latch handles with leaf-shaped ends. The upstairs bathroom has the original lock showing either ‘engaged’ or ‘vacant’. Many of the original windows survive, along with the ironmongery, and have green tiled sills in the reception rooms, hall and landing, and red tiled sills in subsidiary areas. Structural bridging beams run transversely along the south-east side of the former kitchen, dining room and drawing room; the latter room has another beam on the north-west side. The picture rails are a later addition.
The drawing room has a fireplace with a green tiled surround and hearth with a ceramic grate, a mantelpiece supported by shaped brackets and a wooden overmantel. This is flanked by incorporated semi-circular arched cupboards, the top half of which are glazed display cupboards with small square panes, and the lower half has hinged writing desks which can be folded up, with cupboards below. This retains the original ironmongery and keys. There is evidence that the skirting board has been removed behind the cupboards, suggesting that they may have been added slightly later but this is inconclusive. The four narrow bookcases positioned underneath the ends of the bridging beams appear to be later additions. The dining room has a corner fireplace with a similar design except that it does not have cupboards or an overmantel. The grate has been boarded up but may survive. Access to the garden is through a small vestibule between these two rooms (currently used as a cupboard). The former kitchen retains the opening for the range which has a cambered brick arch. On the left side there is a small internal window.
The closed well, dogleg stair has a closed string, square newel posts with flat caps and stick balusters. The stairs are painted but where some of the paint has been removed reveals that it is made of softwood. The door under the stairs leads to a small semi-basement which was used as a larder and retains gauze at the windows. On the first floor the hip rafters are partially revealed which creates a ‘cottage’ atmosphere. The room at the north-east end retains a green tiled hearth but the fireplace has been boarded up. This room has original floorboards which may survive elsewhere in the house under the carpets. The room that originally occupied the south-west end spanned the width of the house but a corridor was inserted to provide access to the new room added in 1933.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a York paved terrace with an integrated millstone and square pattern of bricks, aligned with the back door, runs across the back of the house. At either end are three semi-circular stone, brick-edged steps down to another millstone set in the lawn. The incorporation of millstones in terracing is also a feature at Mallows’ Three Gables.
Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the C20 conservatory is excluded from the listing.
