Greyfriars | |
---|---|
| |
Location | Hog's Back, Surrey |
Coordinates | 51°13′34″N0°38′48″W / 51.2262°N 0.6468°W |
Built | 1896 |
Architect | C.F.A. Voysey |
Architectural style(s) | Arts and Crafts |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Official name | Greyfriars |
Designated | 13 December 1984 |
Reference no. | 1029612 |
Greyfriars is a Grade II* listed house located on the Hog's Back, in the civil parish of Wanborough, in Surrey, England. It was built in 1896 for the novelist and playwright Julian Sturgis and was designed by the arts and crafts architect C.F.A. Voysey. [1] It has been Grade II* listed on the National Heritage List for England since December 1984. [2] The house was previously known as Wancote, and was initially called Merleshanger. [1]
The house was later extended on its western end by Herbert Baker in 1913–14. [2] 20 drawings of the design and detail of Greyfriars are held in the collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Howard Gaye's watercolour of Greyfriars was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1897. [1] Voysey's distinctive heart shaped motif is on Greyfriar's letter box, hinges and door handles. [3]
The house was put up for sale with its staff cottages in 2003 for £3 million. [3]
Julian Russell Sturgis (1848-1904) who built Greyfriars House was a notable Victorian novelist, poet and musical composer. He was born in Boston, USA in 1848. His father was Russell Sturgis the famous merchant and later head of Baring Bank. He came to England at an early age. He went to Eton and later obtained his degree at the University of Oxford where he excelled in football and rowing. He later became a barrister. However his real love was writing and in 1878 he embarked on a career as a novelist. In 1883 his father died and left him a considerable fortune. He had a London residence in Knightsbridge as well as a country house. [4]
In 1883 he married Mary Maud, daughter of Colonel Marcus de la Poer Beresford and the couple had three sons. In 1896 he commissioned the famous architect Charles Voysey to build Greyfriars House. It is still considered to be one of Voysey's best designs. The famous architectural expert Nikolaus Pevsner made the following comment.
Being a writer Julian had several famous friends who visited him at Greyfriars House (then called Wancote). Henry James in 1904 sent a letter to Julian's recently widowed wife mentioning his long friendship with her husband. [6] He continued to occasionally visit her at the house after Julian's death He noted in one of his letters of 1912 to a friend that he recently went there for a weekend. [7] Julian was also a friend of Arthur Christopher Benson whom he sometimes visited and who returned his visits by coming to Greyfriars. [8]
When Julian died in 1904 his wife Mary and his son Sir Mark Beresford Russell Grant-Sturgis (1884-1949) continued to live at the house. In 1914 Mark married Rachel Montagu-Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Wharncliff. [9] The wedding was widely reported in the newspapers and a photo is shown. The couple had two sons.
He was assistant private secretary to H. H. Asquith when chancellor of the exchequer (1906–8), and private secretary to him as prime minister (1908–10). He later became Assistant Under Secretary for Ireland between 1920 and 1922. During this time he wrote five volumes of diaries on the Irish uprising. [10]
In 1920 the Sturgis family put Greyfriars House on the market and it was sold to Philip Lyle
Philip Lyle who bought the house in the 1920s lived there for the next 15 years. He was a Director in the Tate & Lyle sugar refining company. In 1926 he invited the magazine “Garden Life” to the house and they wrote an article describing the property at this time. [11] He sold the house in 1936 and it was bought by Robert Heap Turner (1900-1986), the wealthy industrialist. He lived there for the next 50 years and after his death in 1986 the house was sold.
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America.
The Hog's Back is a hilly ridge, part of the North Downs in Surrey, England. It runs between Farnham in the west and Guildford in the east.
Russell Sturgis was an American architect and art critic of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1870.
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey was an English architect and furniture and textile designer. Voysey's early work was as a designer of wallpapers, fabrics and furnishings in a Arts and Crafts style and he made important contribution to the Modern Style, and was recognized by the seminal The Studio magazine. He is renowned as the architect of several country houses.
Julian Codman, was an American lawyer who was a vigorous opponent of Prohibition who was also involved with the Anti-Imperialist League.
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo was a progressive English architect and designer, who influenced the Arts and Crafts Movement, notably through the Century Guild of Artists, which he set up in partnership with Herbert Horne in 1882. He was the pioneer of the Modern Style and in turn global Art Nouveau movement.
Richard Clipston Sturgis, generally known as R. Clipston Sturgis, was an American architect based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Herbert Tudor Buckland was a British architect, best known for his seminal Arts and Crafts houses, the Elan Valley model village, educational buildings such as the campus of the Royal Hospital School in Suffolk and St Hugh's College in Oxford.
Russell Sturgis was a Boston merchant active in the China trade, and later head of Baring Brothers in London.
Robert Kerr was a British architect, architectural writer and co-founder of the Architectural Association.
Howard Overing Sturgis was an English-language novelist who wrote about same-sex love. Of American parentage, he lived and worked in Britain.
Julian Russell Sturgis was a British-American novelist, poet, librettist and lyricist.
Walton Hall is a country house in Walton, Warrington, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. The hall and its surrounding garden and grounds are owned and administered by Warrington Borough Council.
Henry Parkman Sturgis was an American-born banker in England and a Liberal politician.
Prior's Field is an independent girls' boarding and day school in Guildford, Surrey in the south-east of England. Founded in 1902 by Julia Huxley, it stands in 42 acres of parkland, 34 miles south-west of London and adjacent to the A3 road, which runs between the capital and the south coast.
Sir Mark Beresford Russell Grant-Sturgis KCB was a British civil servant who served as Assistant Under-Secretary for Ireland.
Moor Crag is a Grade I listed house near Bowness-on-Windermere in South Lakeland, Cumbria, England, overlooking Windermere. It lies in the north of the parish of Cartmel Fell. It was designed by C. F. A. Voysey in 1898-1899 as a holiday home for J. W.Buckley of Altrincham.
The Church of St Luke, Sheen, Staffordshire is a Grade II* listed Anglican church. Its origins are of the 14th century, but it was largely rebuilt in the mid-19th century, firstly by C. W. Burleigh, and then by William Butterfield. The church, and its associated parsonage, were the last buildings recorded by Nikolaus Pevsner in his Buildings of England series, when he concluded the series in 1974 with his Staffordshire volume, finishing a project begun in 1945.
William Bainbridge Reynolds was a British art metal worker and an architect who was active from 1870 to 1932.
The architecture of Bedford Park in Chiswick, West London, is characterised largely by Queen Anne Revival style, meaning an eclectic mixture of English and Flemish house styles from the 17th and 18th centuries, with elements of many other styles featuring in some of the buildings.