Summary
One of a distinctive group of chalets found along the waterways of the Broads. Staithcote was built in 1911 as a boat house and extended by 1913 with the addition of a chalet above.
Reasons for Designation
Staithcote, built in 1911 as a boat house and extended by 1913 with the addition of a chalet above, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an important example of a building type that is distinctive to the Broads;
* as an ambitious and well-preserved example of a Broads chalet, in the picturesque or cottage orné style favoured in the northern Broads;
* for its unusual composition of a chalet built over its boat house.
Historic interest:
* as evidence of the evolving social and recreational history of the Broads in the late C19 and C20.
History
The Broads are a network of rivers (Ant, Thurne, Bure, Yare, Waveney and smaller tributaries) and lakes which cover the eastern part of Norfolk and Suffolk. The lakes were created by peat digging which took place mainly in the C12-C14. In 1888, the Broads were conserved by an Act of Parliament and a holiday market developed. Pleasure boating had become increasingly popular by this time, and the Broads also offered the opportunity to fish and shoot. From this time and continuing into the early C20 holiday waterside chalets were built, initially for mainly affluent city dwellers who sought refuge within the wild and undeveloped wetlands. Some of the most popular areas for the chalets were around villages with transport links to major towns and cities, and those which already offered recreational facilities. Entrepreneurial boat builders and hirers began to provide tourist facilities that offered alternatives to boating, and people such as John Loynes of Wroxham and Herbert Woods of Potter Heigham, who had captured early tourists with their boat offer, had the skills to help facilitate and build the early chalets.
Local manufacturers developed their own vernacular style of simple, lightweight timber buildings, suited both to the uncertain subsoils of the wetlands and the need to transport materials which, in the majority of cases, was by water rather than road. Walls were often constructed with a timber frame and clad with timber, painted white or stained dark. On most early examples, the roofs were thatched in local reed, the best reed coming from specially cultivated Norfolk beds (which was also used outside of the Broads). Others had metal sheeting, such as corrugated iron, and felt was also later used. The earliest chalets were built around Wroxham, Hoveton, Horning and Hickling in the undulating, wooded scenery of the northern Broads, known as the upper reaches. These tended to be in a Tudor style, with half-timber walls, natural tree stump balustrading, and thatched roofs. The chalets on the lower reaches, in the south Broads, are in a more exposed area and are simpler in form, often with verandas and with large roofs for wind-resistance.
During the early C20, in response to the Edwardian enthusiasm for leisure sailing, a series of waterside holiday homes and boat houses were built along the south bank of the River Bure in Wroxham. Most were constructed on land belonging to the Humfrey family of Wroxham House, a Georgian mansion which stood to the south-west of the village, but was demolished in 1954. One of the pieces of estate land sold by the family lay at the very eastern end of Beech Road, bounded to the north by the River Bure and to the south by Wroxham Broad. It was acquired in 1906 by Ernest Adcock, a tobacco manufacturer from Norwich, for £175, who immediately subdivided it into four separate plots, retaining one for himself and selling the other three to private individuals. One of the plots was purchased in March 1911 by Mr Lewis Storey of London, for £200, who erected a boathouse on the site. Its construction is believed to have been completed by 11 July 1911, the date when Mr Storey was granted a licence from the Wroxham House estate, the owner of the section of Wroxham Broad adjoining his land, for the right of ingress and egress from a channel he had cut across his land to link the River Bure with Wroxham Broad. Although the estate initially objected to the opening of the channel, a licence was subsequently granted, along with mooring rights, for the annual sum of £3 3s 0d. By 1913, when the property was sold to Mrs Emma Jarvis, a window, and her son, the Reverend Frederic Jarvis, both of Albert House, Cromer, it was described as a bungalow and boat house known as ‘Staithecot’, indicating that the building had either been extended or partially remodelled, such as the conversion of a sail loft, to include a residential element. It was acquired for £650, with an additional sum of £43 paid for furniture and fittings, and in the following year it was purchased by a trust formed of several Jarvis family members, again for £650. During the Jarvis’ tenure it is believed that the bungalow’s veranda was infilled with a picture window and merged with the ground-floor living accommodation. In January 1960, the property was sold to Mrs Winifred Turner of London for £2,600, who held it for a short time, before selling it the following October to Mrs Moya Higham of Sawley, Lancashire. It was sold again in 1962, to Douglas and Gladys Upton of Ilford, Essex, for £4,000, who held it until the early 2000s. It its believed that the Upton’s replaced the original timber piles supporting the building over the dyke with a concrete ring beam in the 1980s. The building today (2024) still remains in private ownership, but is now known as ‘Staithcote’.
Details
One of a distinctive group of chalets found along the waterways of the Broads. Staithcote was built in 1911 as a boat house and extended by 1913 with the addition of a chalet above.
MATERIALS: it is timber framed with weatherboarded walls to the boat house, rendered and painted walls to the chalet, and a half-hipped roof thatched with Norfolk reed.
PLAN: the building is rectangular-on-plan, aligned north to south, and comprises a shallow boat house which straddles a narrow dyke connecting the River Bure on its north side to Wroxham Broad on its south side, over which is a one-and-a-half storey chalet.
EXTERIOR: the building is in a cottage orné style. Its windows are mainly timber-framed casements with square-leaded cames unless stated otherwise and the thatched roof has a deep overhanging eaves and an elaborately patterned block ridge.
The principal elevation, which faces south across Wroxham Broad, has a flat-headed opening to the boat house, above which the chalet has a large picture window with sliding central casements and top lights, all with plain glass and of probable mid-C20 date.
On the east side, at the left-hand end, there is a gabled and weatherboarded porch which is accessed from the south side by a short flight of wooden steps which rise to a small decked area, all enclosed by a timber balustrade with stick balusters and moulded handrails. The porch itself has half-glazed double-leaf doors and fixed-light windows divided by horizontal glazing bars on its north, south and east sides. Enclosed within the porch is a half-glazed front door with obscured Pilkington 'shiplyte' glass. To the right-hand side of the porch, at the centre of the façade, there is a two-light casement, and at the right-hand end there is a canted bay with two-light casements to each face. Above, the attic has a shallow eyebrow dormer with a three-light casement at its southern end.
The north side of the building has a flat-headed opening to the boat house, above which the chalet has a square bay at the centre with a four-light casement on the south face and single-light casements to the returns.
On the west side, from left to right, there is a two-light casement with plain glazing, and then a single-light casement and two shallower two-light casements. To the attic there is a shallow eyebrow dormer with a three-light casement at its southern end.
INTERIOR: the horizontal section (south end) of the L-shaped living room was originally a veranda until it was merged with the living accommodation in the mid-C20. It still retains its original rendered walling above early-C21 vertical timber boarded walls along with exposed timber rafters and woven water reed fleeking (matting used on the underside of the thatch) in a basket weave pattern. The entire east wall of the living room is also lined with vertical timber boarding, while the remaining walls and ceiling are plain plastered and painted, the walls also with moulded picture rails and skirting boards. At the north end is a straight-flight floating staircase with open rises, probably installed in the 1960s.
From the living room three identical timber doors give access to the kitchen (east side), a bathroom (left-hand side of the staircase) and a bedroom (right-hand side of the staircase). All are of an Arts and Crafts style plank door with obscured glazed upper sections with square-leaded cames and upright door handles with curved thumb plates with decorative ends fixed to decorative back plates, all within moulded architraves.
The kitchen also has early-C21 vertical timber boarded walls throughout along with an Arts and Crafts style plank door as described above to a pantry and a large opening to the living room on its south side. The bedroom has plain plastered and painted walls and ceiling along with moulded skirting boards and picture rails.
The attic has two bedrooms, both with canted doorways with half-glazed plank doors with obscured Pilkington 'Shiplyte' glass, decorative upright door handles with curved thumb plates screwed directly to the door, and moulded architraves. The walls and ceilings of the two bedrooms are mainly lined with mid/late-C20 vertical and horizontal timber boarding respectively, with the southern bedroom also having a two-light casement with moulded architrave overlooking the living room (former veranda).
All the casement windows have curved catches and spiral-ended stays.
