Leisure Hour

Summary

One of a distinctive group of chalets found along the waterways of the Broads, Leisure Hour was built in the early C20.

Reasons for Designation

Leisure Hour, an early C20 waterside chalet, 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.

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.

Leisure House was built in the early C20 in the Brimbelow area of Hoveton, near to the confluence of the River Bure and Brimbelow Cut. Little is known of its history other than it remains little altered.

Details

One of a distinctive group of chalets found along the waterways of the Broads, Leisure Hour was built in the early C20.

MATERIALS: timber framed with timber boarded walls and a Norfolk reed thatched roof.

PLAN: it is rectangular plan, aligned roughly east to west.

EXTERIOR: the chalet stands on the north bank of the River Bure and is of a cottage orné style. Its windows are mainly timber-framed mullion and transoms with square-paned transom lights and the thatched roof has a patterned ridge piece and a deep overhanging eaves. The chalet's principal elevation faces south across the River Bure and is a five-bay symmetrical composition with the three centre bays recessed behind a veranda with a timber balustrade with stop chamfered spindles, moulded handrail and a short flight of steps with newel posts with square acorn caps. The veranda is supported by timber posts with ogee braces of which those to the two narrower end bays form ogee-arched heads. At the rear centre of the veranda there is a pair of uPVC French doors flanked on each side by three-light mullion and transoms. The end bays each have a four-light mullion and transom while the returns have identical windows. The rear elevation has a five-light mullion and transom to the centre with a four-light mullion and transom to its left-hand side and a two-light mullion and transom to its right-hand side.

INTERIOR: the interior has panelled timber boarded walls which are believed to be original.

Sources

Other
Kayleigh Wood, Historic Waterside Chalets of the Broads: ‘The Significance of the Waterside Chalets and the Contribution They Make to The Broads is not Fully Understood’ (MSC Dissertation, School of Construction Management and Engineering, University of Reading), 2015

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