The Red House (now Corpus Domini convent)
Leatherhead
The Red House
Surrey, England
KT24 5JP
Lutyens’s 1893 Red House at Effingham, designed for Susan Muir-Mackenzie, is an early example of his Tudor mode—anticipating Castle Drogo—with red brick, mullioned windows, tile‑hung gables, and characteristically shallow-arched windows, embodying his developing idea of a house closely allied to its garden court and screened from the outside world.
Please log in to view the description, bibliography, and record details.
Description
The seeds of this idea of the house’s alliance with its immediate site and the distancing of the surroundings are found in Lutyens’ early works. The sketch for a house at Effingham shows the wings common with the garden walls incorporating the court with the house and excluding the outside world. (Inskip, 1986 p.21)
E of the cross-roads, the RED HOUSE, designed by Lutyens in 1893 for Gertrude Jekyll’s close friend Susan Muir-Mackenzie. In this can be seen the origin of that Tudor mode of his which eventually culminated in Castle Drogo. Red brick with stone dressings to horizontal mullioned windows. Tower-like wing to the r. of the entrance, with tile-hung gable recessed above a curve of tile, the one clumsy effect; shorter wing to the l. also tile-hung in the kneelered gable. Big canted bay on the E side and at the other end a large chimney anchors a hip-roofed service room on the side to the rear service wing under a catslide roof. The windows under wide and shallow segmental arches with tile inserts are very characteristic of early Lutyens. Attached to the SW corner a room with gableted roof. (O’Brien et al., 2022, p.263)
Bibliography
Inskip, P. (1986) Edwin Lutyens: Architectural Monographs 6. 2nd edn. London: Academy Editions.
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.