Antique House Prints...

What a week! Nothing in particular to blog about today, but several underway for next week. In the mean time, I hope you all have relaxing weekends and here are some old antique house plans, and a couple of garden plans for you to peruse...

The Lutyens Bench.... an English standard.

The Lutyens bench above is more correctly called the Thakeham Bench. It was designed for the garden at Little Thakeham near Storrington, West Sussex. The bench has become an archytypal design in its own right. Sadly, many people today would not associate it with the prolific 19th century architect and furniture designer, Edwin Lutyens.

Above: Edwin Lutyens

It has had many spin offs, some of them rather fine:

Lutyens is often associated with Gertrude Jekyll, a horticulturist and gardener contemporary of Lutyens. They collaborated on many houses and gardens, including Jekyll's own house in Goldalming in Surrey, (designed in 1896).

Above: Gertrude Jekyll

A "Lutyens-Jekyll" garden overflowed with dense shrubery, colourful herbaceous borders and strong, classical architecture and furniture. This style was to define the "English garden" until modern times. Here are some examples:

Manor House, Upton Grey, Hampshire, UK

Welcome Edward and Bella...

Just a very brief post to welcome Edward and Bella to the Willowbrook Park farm...

One day when they are grown hopefully they will gain a passing resemblance to...

The Entrance Gates and Pillars...

These have to be our entrance pillars (One must start as one intends to go on....)

I think an entrance, much like one's first cocktail at a great party, should set the mood. From the moment someone enters the grounds of Willowbrook Park, even before they step foot into our glorious vision of Arcadia, we want them to feel its uniqueness, presence and exclusivity. When people drive past we want them to be curious about what lies beyond, hopefully curious enough to come in and enjoy our hospitality.

For this reason we are having imposing wrought iron gates made, with the Willowbrook crest emblazoned upon them (c.f. below).

Further examples of magnificent entrances:

Above: Versailles, Below: Buck House

Further examples:

The crest doesn't have to be gourdy or overstated, just enough to make the gate unique:

Stairs and Balconies....

As we started looking around at options for a staircase last week, I thought I would do a post on the sort of staircase ideas that we have looked at so far...

The stairs have to be a sweeping design, curving up from the foyer to the first floor landing.





Unfortunately there was no room to have a grand staircase rising from the centre of the foyer to a small landing before splitting to either side, so instead, we are looking for the most gracious sweeping staircase that we can find.

The steps will be in the same stone as the foyer, and the balustrading will match that of the Juliet balconies on the front of the house. There is a divine cast iron and gilt balustrade in the Petit Trianon at Versailles:

The detail close up is amazing:

There have been many blog posts about the stairs at the Petit Palais in Paris. This sort of staircase is the one we are likely to settle on.

As the staircase is open to below and the balustrading is continued on 3 sides of the atrium above, it is important to find something which will make a statement.

The other option for balustrading would be ornate plaster work:

But I think that wrought iron is more elegant. What do you think?

Some staircases are more practical than others when making an entrance :-)

Here is a simple example of how the balustrading used on the stiars can be used again for the balconies:

and

If anyone has found a picture of an especially glorious flight of stairs, please feel free to post the URL in your comments so we can check it out :-)