New Place, Shedfield,
Hampshire
1906 by Lutyens with early 17th century interiors |
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Notes in italics from Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by Nikolaus Pevsner
and David Lloyd (1967)
Yale University Press, New Haven and London. |
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New Place. Built by Lutyens in 1906 for Mrs
Franklyn, primarily to accommodate some magnificent fittings from an
early C17 house on the Welsh Back in Bristol, which was demolished in
that year. The house is built entirely of deep red brick, unrelieved by
any other external materials apart from tiling. The style is more or
less Jacobean, to accord with the date of the fittings.
The house is now a
De Vere
Venue for conferences and training.
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Click on photos to enlarge |
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Entrance from the road is through a
pair of iron gates between brick piers, aligned directly on the centre
of the symmetrical facade. This is E-shaped, with boldly projecting
wings of three storeys, a centrepiece of two stories with an attic, and
a square two-storeyed porch. The wings, gabled, have broad canted bays
rising through all three storeys; the windows are brick-mullioned, of
two tiers with transoms on the ground and top storeys, of one tier only
on the second storey. A group of three tall diagonally set chimneys
rises from the inner facade of each wing, which is otherwise simply
treated in brickwork. The effect of the wings is one of restrained,
almost functional simplicity, with no embellishment except where it
expresses the structure. |
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Decoration is concentrated on the
centrepiece, with its balustrade of openwork lozenge pattern (partly
concealing attic windows) and especially on the porch, which has a
balustrade at the same level, a delicate and mannered brickwork pattern
in relief on the wall surfaces (rhythmically coined on the angles), and
what amounts to a Norman arch of three recessed orders, in brick,
resting perversely on massive brick responds with every few courses
incised. A gentle flight of steps leads up to the doorway. |
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The SW (garden) front is decidedly
awkward, of the same basic pattern as the main front, but the wings are
broader and the central recess narrower, its centrepiece a two-storeyed
bay shaped as five sides of a dodecagon, with mullioned windows in three
tiers below (lighting the Bristol Room) and two tiers above and a
top-heavy fascia; chimneystacks flank the wings as in the main facade.
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The NW frontage is decidedly the
back, but it is intriguing; again with tall wings and recessed central
part, but here the top two storeys of the central part are under a
sweeping roof, pierced with five dormers artily arranged. On the NE side
are single-storey outhouses round a small courtyard and an overall
asymmetrical effect, with dormers again artfully placed in a sweeping
stretch of roof. |
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The interior seems at first an
anti-climax, as the porch leads into the side of a tunnel-vaulted
corridor treated with extreme simplicity with rough whitewashed walls
... This is part of Lutyens's artistry; the passageway does not
appear to go anywhere special to the r.; the eye is led l., where it
ends invitingly in a two-light window opening to the SW. Halfway
along the passage in this direction a doorway attracts attention ...;
and one is enticed into the showpiece of the house, the BRISTOL ROOM -
filled with the fittings from the state room of the original house
(in Bristol). The fittings here and elsewhere in New Place date from
c.1623-8 ... and were commissioned by John Langton, a merchant
who was mayor of Bristol in 1628 ...
The panelling on the walls is a fairly regular pattern of
panels of different sizes and a not very obtrusively decorated frieze,
effectively setting off the two show features (fireplace and door
below), and also the ceiling, which has an elaborate (but not too
overwhelming) strapwork pattern, widely spaced pendants, and small scale
delicate detailing mostly of formalized foliage designs.
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The fireplace is a magnificent piece,
with double fluted Ionic engaged columns, on strapwork-decorated bases,
supporting a mantelpiece with wide frieze, circle-patterned with foliate
decoration, the centre part of which is brought forward slightly, and
rests on Ionic volutes, which are supported by corbels carved in
the form of realistic busts, seemingly of Turks; the space between and
beside the corbels, above the fireplace itself, is filled with
arabesque decoration. The overmantel, which rises to the ceiling,
has a slightly projecting centrepiece with a lively royal coat of
arms and flanking caryatid pilasters; to l. and r. are recessed panels
with winged mermaids (said to represent Peace and Plenty); at the outer
ends the overmantel slightly projects again, with two more
caryatid pilasters on each side, directly above the Ionic columns
flanking the fireplace. ... |
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The door of the room internally has a
projecting wooden frame with two composite pillars, inlaid with ivory,
ebony and mother-of-pearl, almost free-standing, on tall panelled bases,
supporting an architrave with a large panel containing a coat of arms,
embellished with side strapwork and broken pediment, and flanked by
pierced obelisks; the frieze of the architrave has small carved
Turk-like heads. On the sides of the doorcase are formalized figures and
thick scrolls. The door itself (now in the reception area) is of
mahogany (very early example of the use of mahogany in
England), with a profusion of panelling, also inlaid with precious
materials, strapwork, and formalized figures, including one representing
justice on the central panel. |
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There are simpler, though still quite
rich, fittings from Bristol in other rooms (including a fireplace with a
Tudor-shaped arch and fairly conventional Jacobean overmantel with round
arch between demi-columns) ... |
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The other really notable Bristol
feature is the STAIRCASE, reached unobtrusively through a Tudor-shaped
arch from the main passageway opposite the entrance; this has balusters
thickly embossed with fruit and foliage, heraldic beats on top of the
newel posts, and the original ceiling, with thickly foliated oval
centrepiece and equally heavy (yet elegant) swags, at the top. |
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On the first floor we revert to
Lutyens's self-effacing reticence, though there is something of a
transitional stage in what amounts to a long gallery, with three simple
transverse Tudor arches, and a side opening into the small space over
the porch. ... |
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The name New Place was chosen by Mrs
Franklyn to perpetuate the name of Shakespeare's house in Stratford. She
had ancestral connections to Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden. |
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Map |
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Lutyens
Properties |
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