121 and 123 Farleigh Road

Summary

A pair of semi-detached houses, built in around 1895, designed by Walter Cave.

Reasons for Designation

121 and 123 Farleigh Road are listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a pair of estate workers’ cottages of considerable architectural interest in an eclectic, Vernacular Revival style, where lively, varied elevations with contrasting materials and bold features form a highly distinctive composition;
* a good example of the small-scale domestic work of distinguished architect Walter Cave, whose cottage buildings gained particular appreciation in the architectural press.

Historic interest:

* as part of the late C19 development of the Tyntesfield estate by Anthony Gibbs.

Group value:

* part of the collection of listed lodges and estate cottages on the Tyntesfield estate, and with Cave’s other buildings at Tyntesfield House, with which there are architectural features in common.

History

121 and 123 Farleigh Road are a pair of semi-detached houses that were built in around 1895, designed by Walter Cave for Anthony Gibbs of Tyntesfield.

Walter Frederick Cave (1863-1939) was born in Clifton, Bristol. He was educated at Eton, Bristol School of Art and the Royal Academy, then was articled to AW Blomfield in 1884. He commenced independent practice in 1888 in London, though a number of commissions were made prior to this through family connections in the Bristol area. One of the earliest is the walled garden at Tyntesfield (1886, listed Grade II) for the Gibbs family; several other commissions were made for the Gibbs as the century progressed, resulting in a significant collection on the Estate in North Somerset, and others on the family’s estate at Sidbury, Devon. Cave's dedication to the Arts and Crafts movement is reflected in his election as a member of the Art Workers Guild in 1889, and his membership of the Quarto Imperial Club, along with ES Prior, Charles Spooner and Voysey. He became President of the Architectural Association in 1907; a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1906; and its Vice President from 1917 to 1921. His architectural oeuvre is varied, including domestic, religious, commemorative, civic, commercial, education and industrial buildings, several of which are listed, including at the higher grades. As well as buildings, Cave designed gardens, furniture, and interiors.

Details

A pair of semi-detached houses, built in around 1895, designed by Walter Cave.

MATERIALS: sections of roughly-coursed, dressed pennant sandstone, with rendering and applied close studded timbering to first floor; timber windows with leaded glazing; stucco cornice, tiled roof with rendered stacks.

PLAN: the building has a linear main range which runs parallel with Farleigh Road, with a wing at either end projecting to the rear (north-west). The houses have mirrored plan forms, occupying L-shaped footprints, with a central service wing.

EXTERIOR: a two-storey building with meandering, highly varied, asymmetrical elevations in a Vernacular Revival style. The building is composed with a series of projecting gabled bays with a roughcast finish, with recessed planes generally being roughly-coursed rubble on the ground floor, with close-studded timbering to the first. Bays are lit by large leaded windows – generally, Ipswich style on the ground floor with casements above. Windows on the recessed sections of the elevations tend to be smaller pairs of casements. There is no obvious distinction between the two houses.

Occupying a sloping site, at the lower, south-west end of the building is a tower-like feature with stone walls rising to a deep stone band forming a slight jetty to the timbered first floor. There are double-height projecting bays to the façade and left return; these have quadrant angles and have a wrap-around Ipswich window to each storey. Bays are topped with a deep cornice with a dentil course and mouldings. Standing on the roadside, the building is fronted by low rubble stone walls, from which rise Tuscan columns with entasis, supporting a flat-roofed veranda along the principal, south-east elevation, interrupted by the gabled projections. The right-hand end of the building, at the top of the slope, has a pitched roof parallel with the road; on the return elevation is a double-height bay with quadrant angles, as at the opposite end of the building.

The north-west facing elevation has a gabled wing at either end, with a central single-storey service wing, half of which serves each house. At number 121 the space between the wings has been infilled, and a conservatory has been built on the south-west elevation. At number 123, a small first-floor extension has been built, supported on a post above the back door.

INTERIOR: ground floors have three principal rooms: kitchen, dining and lounge, arranged around a hall and stair. There has been some reconfiguration, with alterations to external openings, and in number 121, inserted partitioning. Joinery survives, with slight variation in style between the two houses in terms of the mouldings on the skirtings and architraves. Doors are a combination of four-panel and ledge and plank. Some glazing has been replaced, replicating the original windows, and many of the original cast iron catches and stays survive. Chimneystacks are set on angles in the corners of rooms, most fireplaces have been removed or replaced. In number 121 the lounge chimneypiece survives; it has a moulded timber surround with reeded uprights, panelling and mantel shelves, a cast iron fireplace with tiled slip and hearth; an inscribed panel reads ‘19 W B C 11’. Stairs have stick balusters, square newel posts and moulded, curved handrails. Number 123 has a first-floor extension containing a bathroom.

Sources

Books and journals
Patrick, Judith, Walter Cave: Arts and Crafts to Edwardian Splendour, (2012)
Wood, E, Some modern cottages in Studio: International Art, Vol. 96, (March 1901), 105-109
Segal, W, Obituary: Walter Frederick Cave in Architects' Journal, Vol. 89, issue 2295, (12 January 1939), 44

Websites
Cave, Walter Frederick 1863-1939’, Biographical Dictionary of British and Irish Architects 1800-1950, accessed 01/02/2024 from https://architecture.arthistoryresearch.net/architects/cave-walter-frederick
Patrick, Judith, Walter Cave, FRIBA and his Two Devon Gardens, Devon Gardens Trust Journal, 2009/2 13/5/13 p19-23, accessed 01/02/2024 from https://www.devongardenstrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/content/2236%20DGT%208.pdf

Other
Walter Cave and the Orangery at Tyntesfield, a Study in Arts and Crafts Neo-Classicism, Tom Rinaldi, pp45, 70, 2008 (National Trust, Tyntesfield)

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