Munstead Corner (now Munstead Place)
Munstead Place (originally Munstead Corner), built 1891–2 for Charles and Constance Heatley, is an early, somewhat awkward Lutyens house in Bargate stone with flat half‑timbered gables in the Shaw/Ernest George manner, redeemed by a lively, spatially intricate classical staircase.
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Description
An immature work which shows Lutyens’s inability at this stage to translate the subtlety of his intentions into reality. The sketchbook shows Lutyens out to delight his client with the green and terracotta world of Caldecott’s Old West Surrey. As realised the house is harsh and rather large with flat half-timbered gables on a Bargate stone base – in Shaw’s ‘Old English’ style. The interior is mainly classical with a delightful staircase. (Amery et al., 1981 cat no. 49)
At her [Gertrude Jekyll] recommendation Lutyens designed MUNSTEAD PLACE, 1891–2, built as Munstead Corner, further N, on the NE side of Heath Lane. Charles and Constance Heatley were his clients; the plot was given as a wedding present by her parents, the Marshalls of Broadwater. It is an immature work, starting, as late C19 architects so often did, from early Norman Shaw but really showing the influence of Ernest George, Lutyens’s master. Bargate stone body under an inadequately felt close-studded upper floor. Front with three (two large – one small) gables, the l. one originally finishing in a catslide over an open loggia. Brick porch recessed behind a robustly pegged timber arch. Sprightly interior, with spatially intricate classical staircase. (O’Brien et al., 2022, p.534)
Bibliography
Amery, C., Richardson, M. and Stamp, G. (1981) Lutyens, the Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944): Hayward Gallery London, 18 November 1981-31 January 1982. London: Arts Council of Great Britain.
O’Brien, C., Nairn, I. and Cherry, B. (2022) Surrey. Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.
, Nairn, I., Pevsner, N. (1971) Surrey (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England). 2nd edn. Yale University Press.
