The Cloisters

This house was designed for a site divided from the road on the north by a high wall, the line of which was not parallel with the main axis of the site. The ground plan shows how this difficulty has been met by the formation of a forecourt of irregular pentagonal shape. Paths paved with old flagstones radiate from the centre of the court, and the triangular spaces between them are set with cobble-stones in patterns of grey and white. The little grey court, enclosed with its high wall, is brightened by its marginal areas of mown grass, and in its centre a little lead figure completes the focus of the scheme. The house is grey, too, like the court, relieved by the varied tints of purple and gold in its roof of old tiles, by the toned whiteness of the panels in the half-timber work, and by the twinkling lights of its windows of crown glass.

The plan of the house itself is based on the traditional model ot many an old manor-house. One enters from the porch a paved passage, which crosses the house and forms the starting-point for the main garden vista. To the right of this are the three principal sitting-rooms—the hall, two storeys high, in this case used as a dining-hall; the drawing-room and study—each with its comfortable fireside and separate approach.

To the left of the central passage are staircase and lavatory, and beyond these a children’s room, which opens on to a cloister walk open to the south, a place for meals in summer weather and for the children’s play.

The remainder of the ground plan is occupied by the kitchen premises. On the upper floor the hall, with its galleries, divides the bedrooms into two groups. That at the west end comprises two bedrooms and dressing-room as spare rooms—and that at the east the family rooms—the principal bedroom having a dressing-room with bath adjoining the principal bathroom. The roof-space contains the servants’ bedrooms and boxroom, and the development of the space over the hall would admit of a possible billiard-room there. The position of the children’s room on the ground floor, in relation to the kitchen premises, suggests that a modification of the plan might consist in making this room the dining-room, the children’s playroom being placed in the attics.

A portion of the garden scheme is shown on the ground plan. The path which forms its central vista-line divides the lawn from the rose garden, and, the latter being sunk, this path becomes a terrace. A few old trees seem to adapt themselves naturally to their positions on the edge of the lawn, and the rose garden is focused in the central dipping-well. Beyond, to the south, are kitchen garden and orchard; and the house is so placed that the bay-window of the hall looks down the centre of an existing avenue of old fruit-trees beyond the lawn.

Another feature of the garden scheme which may be noted is the little square court to the west of the house, from which an arcade opens communicating with the study.

The cost of this house would be about £1200.