Enlargement: Brimshot Farm Chobham Common Surrey

To me, there are no. pleasanter little houses than those which the late eighteenth century has handed down. Transferred to paper, their elevations seem to be the very easiest essays in formal design, but the realisation of them in brick and tile and wood required a tradition in building which we no longer possess, and that is the main reason why modern houses on the same lines so rarely achieve a similar excellence. But a subsidiary fact of no little importance is, I have long contended, that our architects will not be sufficiently humble to _ follow these houses closely and carefully. Too often they cannot refrain from introducing some of their own “individuality,’ and, as this requires a sense of design which few possess, the result is not an improvement. Modern tampering with the proportions of the Parthenon order is foredoomed to failure; and though the Late Georgian builders were no Phidiases, they had so much more intuition of their craft than any of us have to-day that we may well accept their work as a model to follow.

Admittedly it is no facile task, and Mr. Morley Horder must have been fully aware of the fact when he undertook the making of a modern home out of the little four-square house called Brimshot Farm that faces Chobham Common in Surrey. His success there is. in direct ratio to his assimilation and re-creation of the spirit of the old work he was. dealing with. The total result is extremely pleasing, the more so in comparison with the restless effect of the colony of houses around Woking station, which is the railway gate for rural Chobham. Extension in some form being imperative to adapt the little farmhouse to its new requirements, it was decided that the character of the old work could best be carried on by making the additions on both sides of the house. Unfortunately, the question of aspect received very little consideration in late Georgian days, and in this particular case the aspect and the prospect—q beautiful view over the Common— made matters difficult. A satisfactory solution, however, was arrived at by using the old front door as a garden entrance, looking west, and now its two sentinel-like poplars are features in a little sunk garden on this side, out of which only a path leads to the by-road. The extension is on the north, forming a plan of T shape, and connecting up to the farm buildings, through which a way was cut to a little entrance court, part of the big barn being used as a garage. This arrangement left the old house intact and at the same time effected a good grouping of the whole. The parlour and sitting-room of the old house have been turned into a long low drawing-room with an outlook to the south-west, and the old kitchen (which faced south) now becomes the study. In the new wing are the hall, the dining-room and service offices. The ground floor plan below shows what has been done, the original building being hatched across. The old house thus blossoms forth in a larger way, vet has suffered no violence in the process. Hand-made bricks and old tiles have been used for the new addition, but this frankly proclaims itself as such, which is proper and right, whereas the tricking out of new work to look like old is one of the cardinal sins of architecture. The owner, Mr. Brettell, might have pulled down the old house and built a new one in its place—getting, possibly, more direct and ample arrangements thereby—but it would have meant many years before there would have been the settled conditions of house and garden which he now has by keeping so much that has been mellowed by the passing of the years. RKP

Reference           Country Life 22 November 1919 page 675-676 - The Lesser Country Houses of Today