Summary
A late-Georgian farm house, likely to date from around 1830 with some earlier C18 fabric and a later kitchen wing added before 1886.
Reasons for Designation
Apes Hall, Littleport, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a late-Georgian farmhouse in the style of an Italianate villa;
* for its symmetrical Italianate front elevation and for the elegant stair hall at the centre of its plan.
Historic interest:
* for its ability to illustrate the life of the Fenland gentleman-farmer of the C18 and C19.
History
Apes Hall was constructed as a tenant farmhouse in the hamlet of Apshall. The conflation of the name of the hamlet and the house creates some confusion in the written record, but it is clear that a farmhouse existed on this site in the late-C18. An advert in the Cambridge Chronicle for the tenure of 'Apeshall Farm' in 1781 recorded '400 acres and a substantial brick house, with walled garden, large barn, granary, cart lodge, stable and other outhouses.' Further property deeds relating to the farmhouse confirm it was extant in 1790.
Stylistic and fabric evidence suggest that the house was heavily remodelled and re-shaped in the early C19, no later than 1839 when it appears on tithe map for the parish of Littleport under the name 'Ap's Hill Farm'. It is this late-Georgian character that predominates, despite the presence of earlier-C18 fabric.
The house appears in greater detail on the sequence of 25" OS maps beginning in 1886. These maps show that the northern kitchen wing was added in the mid-C19, between 1839 and 1886.
In the mid-C19 the house was occupied by Henry Jones, who ran the site not only as a farm but also as a stable for race horses. Famous horses associated with the stud at Apes Hall include the winner of the Liverpool Steeple Chase of 1859 (later known as the Grand National), now memorialised on the garden wall.
On 16 December 1942 the house was visited by Eddie Chapman (1914-1997), better known as Agent Zigzag. At the outset of the Second World War, Chapman had been captured in the Channel Islands by the German army of occupation. A double agent, he allowed himself to be recruited as a Nazi spy whilst ultimately working for MI5. Sent on a mission to England in December 1942, Chapman parachuted into the fens near Littleport and surrendered himself at Apes Hall.
In the 1970s and again in the early-C21 the house underwent various local repairs, alteration and some acts of restoration. The most notable changes have been made to the fireplaces in the principal rooms. Much of the cupboard joinery in the ground floor is the result of careful work in the later phase.
Artist and graphic designer Peter Denmark (1950-2014) lived and worked at Apes Hall in the C21. Denmark's work includes the design of the British Telecom 'Piper', the black horse of Lloyds Bank, and the Labour Party rose.
Details
A late-Georgian farm house, likely to date from around 1830 with some earlier C18 fabric and a later kitchen wing added before 1886.
MATERIALS
The building is constructed of brick, faced in scored render on the west, north and south elevations and Gault brick on the east. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate.
PLAN
At the centre of the plan is a stair hall with rooms arranged symmetrically either side, and a later kitchen extension to the north.
EXTERIOR
The house is two storeys high with hipped roofs and projecting eaves. There are chimneys over the north and south bays.
The principal elevation faces west and is three bays wide, with a projecting central bay. It is framed by the suggestion of pilasters and a frieze in the render. There are windows on each bay of each storey, all wooden sashes with glazing bars and horns, and surrounds with cornices supported by console brackets. Centrally at ground floor is a late-C20 Doric porch over a pair of three-panelled doors in a glazed surround. The door surround and the ground floor windows retain the upper housing for canopies.
The north elevation has a single window at ground floor, a wooden 6/6 sash without horns. The kitchen wing projects from the east side, it is one-and-a-half storeys high, walled in Gault brick with an end-stack and lean-to stores at the north. It faces east with a ground floor doorway, and three sash windows.
The east elevation is three bays wide and is faced in irregularly bonded Gault brick. The fenestration is also irregular: a canted bay on the ground floor left-hand-side; an oriel on the right-hand-side, first floor. The ground floor has two tall 9/9 sash windows, one 6/6 without horns, and a doorway in a Gothic four-centred archway. At first floor there is one 6/6 sash with horns, another with margins lights, and a small 3/3 window. A single 3/6 sash appears at attic height.
The south elevation has two 6/6 sash windows without horns at ground level, and a smaller 4/8 sash at first floor.
INTERIOR
The plan form has been little-altered since the mid-C19. Surviving historic fixtures include skirtings, dados, cornices, ceiling roses, picture rails, reeded four-panelled doors and window shutters). While the fireplaces in the principal rooms have generally been replaced, there are some surviving original grates and surrounds in the attic rooms.
At the centre of the plan is a large stair hall, leading into the principal domestic spaces at ground and first floor. An elliptical arch separates the vestibule from the hall proper. The floor has been covered in cement with the appearance of a contrasting monochrome diamond pattern. The stair itself has an open string with waved tread ends and two machine-turned balusters per tread; it winds once to the landing. The mahogany handrail lands at the curtail step with a monkey tail newel. A secondary stair within a closed compartment is accessed through a round archway on the south side of the hall.
The roof structure is original and consists of an unusual knee-braced king post truss, formed from hand-sawn pine with iron pegs and straps.
The cellars are built of brick with brick floors, with differing phases evident in the brickwork; certain rooms within the cellars have brickwork with diagonal skintling marks and may represent an C18 phase, while others have horizontal skintling marks and are likely to be later in date.
A second set of cellars accessed from the kitchen wing has cement floors and rendered walls.
The kitchen wing at ground floor has a quarry tiled floor and later-C20 joinery. The attic storey of this wing may originally have provided storage, and accommodation for domestic or agricultural staff. It is divided into small rooms with plank-and-batten doors.
