Swiss Cottage at Shrubland Hall

Summary

An ornamental Swiss Cottage built around 1840 to the designs of Alexander Roos as part of the pleasure grounds of Shrubland Hall.

Reasons for Designation

The Swiss Cottage at Shrubland Hall, Suffolk, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the quality of its craftsmanship, especially the carved detail of the carpentry;
* for the unusual external decoration, including the German inscription.

Historic interest:

* for its place in the development of the house and landscape at Shrubland Hall, belonging to the period of work undertaken by Alexander Roos;
* as an early and high-quality example of authentically detailed Alpine architecture in England.

Group value:

* for its contribution to the Grade I registered Park and Garden of Shrubland Hall (NHLE 1000155) and the other listed buildings within the designed landscape, including the Grade II* listed Hall (NHLE 1033252).

History

The Swiss Cottage at Shrubland Hall can be seen on the 1840 Tithe Map for the parish of Barham. It appears to have been constructed between the major phases of remodelling to the house and landscape led by the designers J P Gandy-Deering in around 1830 and by Charles Barry in around 1848.

It is likely to have been designed in the manner of a cottage orné or picturesque summer house as an embellishment to the landscape and as a display of taste. In the early part of the C20 an alpine rock garden was created to the south-east of the cottage. Towards the end of the C20 whilst Shrubland Hall was in use as a private clinic, the Swiss Cottage was used as a residence for medical staff.

Its design has been attributed to Alexander Roos (around 1810-1881) whose German family and Italian birth may explain the origin of the building's Tyrolean or Alpine influence. It is an early example of a building in England that has faithfully adopted the architecture of that region. The inscription on the south elevation is taken from a tragic play called Rosamunde (1812) by the German poet Theodor Körner (1791-1813) and the cottage as a whole may reflect the impact of German Romanticism.

Loose interpretations of 'Swiss Cottages' were known in England in the C19. Such buildings were often older vernacular cottages that were called 'Swiss' in recognition of their picturesque quality, or were newly built brick villas where emphasis had been given to a pitched roof embellished with timber detailing. It is rare to find examples such as that at Endsleigh in Devon which, in 1810, attempted to evoke real Alpine architecture (Grade I, NHLE 1105549). The Swiss Cottage at Shrubland may be the first in England to display faithful attention to the timber detailing and architectural forms of authentic Swiss or Tyrolean architecture. It predates the Swiss Cottage imported to the Osborne estate on the Isle of Wight by at least five years (Grade II, NHLE 1223806).

Roos designed several further features at Shrubland: introducing some key reforms to the layout of the house; creating the (Grade II, NHLE 1033254) Hot Wall within the gardens, and the Barham Lodge (Grade II, NHLE 1352050).

Details

An ornamental Swiss Cottage built around 1840 to the designs of Alexander Roos as part of the pleasure grounds of Shrubland Hall.

MATERIALS

The building combines a timber frame with a brick and flint base at ground floor. The roof is pitched and covered in pantiles.

PLAN

The internal plan was not available for inspection. There are two storeys with external access possible via galleries at each floor.

EXTERIOR

The principal elevation faces south. It is three bays in width and has a gallery at first floor. There are windows to the left and right of a canted wooden bay on both floors. The external wall is deeply recessed behind a two-tier verandah and is surmounted by a steeply pitched roof supported by three projecting brackets and terminated with scallop-notched timber bargeboards. The bresummer at the external face of the gallery is notched on its lower edge and ornamented with a continuous chevron or zigzag moulding and scalloped edge. The corner posts of the verandah are elaborately carved with a rectilinear barley twist. The balustrade consists of bottle-shaped splat balusters and a plain handrail. The base of the elevation has a rendered plinth with a scalloped detail. The wall surface is covered in white-painted render with red highlights framing the principal openings and the edges of the wall itself. Above the central bay an inscription in German blackletter font reads "Seid mir wil[l]kom[m]en meine theuren freunde / zur guten stunde fuhre euch das schicksal" (Welcome my dear friends / fate will guide you at the right hour).

The west elevation is set back from deeply projecting eaves supported on tarred pine posts. It has a brick and flint base at ground floor and tarred weatherboarded walling above. There are four ground floor windows and two at first floor, all in wooden frames.

The north elevation has a brick and flint base with a single window and door opening at the left hand side at ground floor and a brick coal-store on the right. A timber gallery with bottle-shaped splat balusters runs across the elevation at first floor where there is a central door with vertical cover fillets and windows on each side. Above the height of the wall plate the walls are covered in render wtih painted red borders. Two projecting tiled pentice boards project the wall from the weather.

The east elevation has a brick and flint base and, between the ground and first floors, a door with vertical cover fillets. An area of timber gallery has been lost that would have led to this door, accessed via a surviving external flight of steps at the north-east corner. These steps have an unusual set of diamond pattern splat balusters.

INTERIOR

Access to the interior was not made available.

Sources

Books and journals
Garnier, R, Alexander Roos (circa 1810-1881) in The Georgian Group Journal , Vol. XV, (2006), 11-68

Other
1840 Tithe Map for the Parish of Barham, Suffolk, surveyed by Sheldrake and McLachlan (Colchester).

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry