The Homestead, Edgbaston

The Homestead, Edgbaston
The Grade I listed wall and gates to The Homestead. The house is not visible from the public highway.
Type	House
Location	Edgbaston, Birmingham
Coordinates	52°28′18″N1°57′21″W / 52.4717°N 1.9558°W / 52.4717; -1.9558
Built	1897
Architect	Charles Bateman
Governing body	Privately owned
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	The Homestead, 25 Woodbourne Road, B17
Designated	8 July 1982
Reference no.	1076065
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Garden wall and gate piers to Number 25
Designated	8 July 1982
Reference no.	1211502
Location of The Homestead, Edgbaston in West Midlands county

The Homestead, 25 Woodbourne Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, England is a house built in 1897. It was designed by Charles Bateman, and built by James Smith & Son. The architectural style is Arts and Crafts and the house is a Grade I listed building. The garden wall and gate piers facing Woodbourne Road have a separate Grade I listing. The Homestead remains a private residence.

History

Over a period of some three hundred years, the city of Birmingham expanded from a West Midlands town with few natural advantages into England's second city and "one of the greatest manufacturing centres in the world". ^[1] The later 19th century saw major growth of the city's suburbs, including that of Edgbaston, to the south-west of the city centre. The area largely belonged to the Gough-Calthorpe family which presided over sensitive development aimed at the city's affluent middle and upper classes. ^{[lower-alpha 1] [3]} The city's architects developed a distinctive regional variant of the Arts and Crafts architectural style, ^[4] inspired by William Lethaby's The Hurst at Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield, and culminating in the Bournville model village developed by the Cadbury family of chocolate manufacturers. ^[5]

Charles Bateman (1863–1947) was firmly in this architectural tradition. Working with his father John Jones Bateman, ^[6] and over the course of a career spent largely in Birmingham and the Cotswolds, he developed a substantial practice. ^{[lower-alpha 2] [8]} Bateman undertook considerable work in the industrial and commercial, as well as the domestic, fields. Peter Davey considers his printing works, on Cornwall Street in Birmingham, to be "one of the most daring designs for an industrial building of the period." ^[9] In 1897, he began the construction of The Homestead. ^[10] The house remains a private residence.

Architecture and description

The Arts and Crafts architectural style in domestic architecture was championed by Edwin Lutyens and popularised by his friend, collaborator and client, Edward Hudson, the owner of Country Life . ^{[11] [12]} The style caught hold in the English suburbs; Peter Davey, in his study Arts and Crafts Architecture, notes that "the architecture of Voysey, Baillie Scott, Parker and early Lutyens lives on in endless copies of hips and gables, half-timbering and harling, mullions and leaded bay windows". ^{[lower-alpha 3] [13]} The Homestead is built to an L-plan and is of two storeys and three bays. The interior remains "virtually as built". Julian Holder notes the "Voysey-like assurance" of Bateman's composition. ^[14] The house's Historic England listing record calls it "the most innovating of Bateman and Bateman's domestic Arts and Crafts designs". ^[10]

In his 2007 Birmingham volume of the Pevsner Architectural Guides, Andy Foster references The Homestead but does not describe it. ^{[lower-alpha 4] [17]} Foster's new guide, Birmingham and the Black Country, published in 2022 has detailed coverage of the house. Describing it as one of Bateman's "most important houses, and perhaps his most progressive", Foster notes the uncommon, double-pile, design and the many, more traditional, features including a billiard room, inglenook fireplaces and the almost obligatory, inscribed homilies, in this case, East, West, Home's Best. ^[18]

The Homestead is a Grade I listed building. ^[10] The garden wall and the gate piers facing Woodbourne Road also have a Grade I listing. ^[19]

Notes

1. Augustus Gough-Calthorpe, 6th Baron Calthorpe, donated land at Edgbaston for the site of the University of Birmingham in 1900 and 1907. ^[2]
2. Peter Davey observes that many of the buildings Bateman designed in the Midlands nevertheless "had a strong Cotswold feel". ^[7]
3. Davey notes that "round every sizeable English town there is a ring of Arts and Crafts suburbs". ^[13]
4. The house is not mentioned in Nikolaus Pevsner's Warwickshire volume of the Buildings of England published in 1966 and re-issued in 2003. ^[15] The expanded Warwickshire Pevsner, authored by Chris Pickford and published in 2016, does not cover Birmingham. ^[16]

References

1. Foster 2007, p. 3.
2. Cannadine 1996, p. 568.
3. Foster 2007, p. 212.
4. Foster 2007, pp. 20–26.
5. Foster 2007, p. 21.
6. Turner, Joe (20 March 2014). "Arts and Crafts Architecture in Birmingham IV: CE Bateman". Birmingham Conservation Trust.
7. Davey 1995, p. 107.
8. Gray, Breach & Breach 1986, p. 102.
9. Davey 1995, p. 145.
10. Historic England. "The Homestead, 25 Woodbourne Road B17 (Grade I) (1076065)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 1 December 2021.
11. Cornforth 1988, p. 43.
12. Strong 1996, p. 43.
13. Davey 1995, p. 191.
14. Holder 2021, p. ?.
15. Pevsner & Wedgwood 2003, pp. 173–175.
16. Pickford & Pevsner 2016, Foreword.
17. Foster 2007, p. 239.
18. Foster 2022, pp. 392–393.
19. Historic England. "Garden Wall and gate piers to Number 25 (Grade I) (1211502)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 1 December 2021.

Sources

• Cannadine, David (1996). The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy. London: Papermac. ISBN   978-0-333-65218-3. OCLC   473252495.
• Cornforth, John (1988). The Search for a Style: Country Life and Architecture 1897-1935. London: André Deutsch. ISBN   978-0-233-98327-1. OCLC   496077190.
• Davey, Peter (1995). Arts and Crafts Architecture. London: Phaidon Press. ISBN   978-0-714-83711-6. OCLC   1154953289.
• Foster, Andy (2007). Birmingham. Pevsner Architectural Guides. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-10731-9. OCLC   705892595.
• — (2022). Birmingham and The Black Country. The Buildings of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-22391-0. OCLC   1308412881.
• Gray, A. Stuart; Breach, Jean; Breach, Nicholas (1986). Edwardian Architecture: A Biographical Dictionary. Iowa City, US: University of Iowa Press. ISBN   978-0-877-45136-5. OCLC   757207227.
• Holder, Julian (2021). Arts and Crafts Architecture: Beauty's Awakening. Marlborough, UK: The Crowood Press. ISBN   978-1-785-00797-2.
• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Wedgwood, Alexandra (2003) [1966]. Warwickshire. The Buildings of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-09679-8. OCLC   456771675.
• Pickford, Chris; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2016). Warwickshire. The Buildings of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-21560-1. OCLC   958123462.
• Strong, Roy (1996). Country Life 1897-1997: The English Arcadia. London: Country Life Books. ISBN   978-0-752-21054-4. OCLC   36064626.