The Mount School (now Amesbury School)
Hindhead
Hazel Grove
Surrey, England
GU26 6BL
Amesbury School at Hindhead (1903), originally built as The Mount preparatory school, is Lutyens’s first “Wrennaissance” work: a long, low Neo‑Georgian/Wren‑style brick range with central pedimented doorcase and modillioned cornice, almshouse‑like rear elevation, and a monumental interior corridor and stair with inverted classical strainer arches.
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Description
Hussey notes that this dormitory block is a ‘brick range in the pure Wren manner with a central pediment and modillioned cornice recalling Morden College’. The upstairs passage has classical inverted strainer arches of great monumentality. (Contributor: Margaret Richardson)
AMESBURY SCHOOL (purpose-built as The Mount prep school) by Lutyens, 1903. One long, low Neo-Wren range, the architect’s first foray into this style, the front with a very characteristic doorcase with an immense block of undressed stone in the pediment (this was, of course, intended to be carved but has an elemental power without it), and long multi-paned sashes l. and r, for nine bays, the end bays as short wings. The back facing W is extremely pretty and reminiscent of almshouses with central pediment, small windows, big roof and an unexpected ability to let well alone and to allow the proportions and materials to make their effect unaided. Axial corridor from end to end inside, plain arches; the stairs at the centre form a bridge over the door with Chinoiserie balustrades. The upstairs passage has at the top of the stairs Lutyens’s classical equivalent of inverted strainer arches. Rustic weatherboarded CHAPEL and excellent VISUAL ARTS CENTRE, 2016, composed of laminated timber beams with a parallelogram section; a mature Scots pine tree grows through the open roof, opposite the small timber-clad LIBRARY, 2019; both by Chris Bennie of T. P. Bennett. (O’Brien et al., 2022, p.461)
HAZEL GROVE 1. 5393 (west Side) Hindhead Amesbury School SU 83 SE 9/49 23.1.73. II* 2. 1903 by Sir Edwin Lutyens, built as a private house. Neo-Georgian style. Built of buff brick with red brick quoins and dressings. Facade to road is one-storeyed of 13 bays. Central 7 bays are slightly recessed, central door with pedimented stone doorcase. Sash windows either side. Large hipped tile roof with dormers. Rear facade is 2-storeyed and of 11 bays. Centre 3 bays project and have pediment. Central door with niche above flanked bay sash windows. Small sash windows on both floors light flanking blocks. Tall brick chimney-stacks. North block at right angles in more vernacular style. (Historic England, list entry 1272562)
Bibliography
O’Brien, C., Nairn, I. and Cherry, B. (2022) Surrey. Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Historic England. AMESBURY SCHOOL. [Online] Available from: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1272562, Nairn, I., Pevsner, N. (1971) Surrey (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England). 2nd edn. Yale University Press.