The Hut (Munstead Wood Hut)
The Hut (now Munstead Wood Hut), built by Lutyens in 1894–5 for Gertrude Jekyll, is a deliberately simple, idealized Surrey cottage with tile-hung gables, central chimney, open‑roofed living hall and inglenook, and a few small rooms, enabling her to live out Arts-and-Crafts ideals of modest rural life.
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Description
The Hut is an exact recreation of a vernacular Surrey cottage, tile hung with hipped roof and corbie-stepped chimney. At one end there is an open-roofed living room with large inglenook fireplace, but only three other small rooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. (She had one servant with her, who slept upstairs, whereas she slept below – her bed on the ‘brick floor, without carpet’). The casement windows are oak-framed with pegging. At The Hut Miss Jekyll could recreate the comparative simplicity of an ‘Arts and Crafts’ life. (Amery et al., 1981, cat no.80)
With her brother ensconced at Munstead House, Miss Jekyll needed a home of her own. First, about ¼ m. WNW, came THE HUT (now MUNSTEAD WOOD HUT), built among the trees by Lutyens in 1894–5 as a place where she could entertain her friends. It is a self-conscious recreation of the ideal Surrey cottage, with its deep gableted tile roof containing the upper floor, central chimney, cosily tile-hung and with white roughcast walls. At one end is a wing for the living hall, with an open timber roof and an inglenook. With the Hut constructed, work could begin on MUNSTEAD WOOD, immediately E and entered from Heath Lane. (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.
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