Minterne House - panoramic
Image by ell brown
This is Minterne House. It only dates from the early 1900s as the previous house on this site was demolished around 1900.
Was home of the Churchill family, later members of the Digby family.
Until the dissolution of the monastaries, Minterne was the Manor of the Abbey.
After 1539 it was given to Winchester College.
Winchester College rented it to the first Sir Winston Churchill, who left it to his son General Charles Churchill.
Admiral Robert Digby purchased the land in 1768.
The original Churchill House was demolished in 1900 because it had dry rot.
The house is Grade II* listed.
Minterne Magna House, Minterne Magna
ST 60 SE MINTERNE MAGNA MINTERNE MAGNA VILLAGE
(EAST SIDE)
8/165 7-4-76 Minterne Magna House
(formerly listed as
Minterne House)
GV II*
Country House, 1904-6 by Leonard Stokes for Lord Digby. Walls of
squared, coursed and dressed rubble and ashlar. Ham Hill stone
throughout. Stone slated roofs with stone copings and variously
positioned ashlar stacks. Free and eclectic use of styles, the
exterior being largely of 'perpendicular' gothic and 'Jacobethan'
derivation whilst the interior is largely baroque and 'Adamesque'
Plan: 2 storey main hall leading from a vestibule with other rooms
leading from spine corridors on both floors. Servants' wings (now
flats) to west and north. Billiard room set at an angle to main
range to the south-west. East tower of 4 storeys. Main range is
largely 2 storeys with attics. South front: symmetrical; 11 bays
plus billiard room wing. 3 canted bays of 2 storeys with 2 stone
gables between; rusticated and pilasters. 2 and 3-light stone,
mullioned and transomed windows; central round headed doorway with
keystone and bulls-eye window over; moulded cornice bearing carvings;
embattled parapet. North front: U-plan with central porch; plain
ashlar and rusticated pilasters. 2 storey hall windows to left of
porch of 3-lights with 'perpendicular' tracery under square heads;
similar first floor window over porch; other windows are stone
mullioned and mullioned and transomed under square heads with labels;
round porch hoods; embattled parapet with cornice below. East facade;
similar mullioned fenestration with 2 storey bow window; tower flanked
by capped, fluted pilasters. Internal features: hall in the baroque
style with a barrel-vaulted roof, coupled Ionic pilasters, a carved
wooden gallery; and an elaborately carved chimney piece in marble with
side-scrolls originally intended for Eaton Hall; tapestry room designed
to house tapestries by Judocus de Vos with reset allegorical ceiling
painting said to be by Thornhill and a reset C18 fireplace with key-
pattern inlay; other rooms with baroque and Adamesque decoration and
reset Cl8 chimneypieces.
Aslet, Clive, "Minterne Magna I and II", in Country Life, Feb 21st, 1980
pp 498-501 and Feb 28th, 1980 pp 574-7. Newman J and Pevsner, N,
Buildings of England: Dorset, Penguin, 1972, pp 295-6, Taylor, N,
Minterne House and Leonard Stokes, manuscript notes.
Listing NGR: ST6603204184
Panoramic of the house.
Minterne House - path - through the trees
Image by ell brown
This is Minterne House. It only dates from the early 1900s as the previous house on this site was demolished around 1900.
Was home of the Churchill family, later members of the Digby family.
Until the dissolution of the monastaries, Minterne was the Manor of the Abbey.
After 1539 it was given to Winchester College.
Winchester College rented it to the first Sir Winston Churchill, who left it to his son General Charles Churchill.
Admiral Robert Digby purchased the land in 1768.
The original Churchill House was demolished in 1900 because it had dry rot.
The house is Grade II* listed.
Minterne Magna House, Minterne Magna
ST 60 SE MINTERNE MAGNA MINTERNE MAGNA VILLAGE
(EAST SIDE)
8/165 7-4-76 Minterne Magna House
(formerly listed as
Minterne House)
GV II*
Country House, 1904-6 by Leonard Stokes for Lord Digby. Walls of
squared, coursed and dressed rubble and ashlar. Ham Hill stone
throughout. Stone slated roofs with stone copings and variously
positioned ashlar stacks. Free and eclectic use of styles, the
exterior being largely of 'perpendicular' gothic and 'Jacobethan'
derivation whilst the interior is largely baroque and 'Adamesque'
Plan: 2 storey main hall leading from a vestibule with other rooms
leading from spine corridors on both floors. Servants' wings (now
flats) to west and north. Billiard room set at an angle to main
range to the south-west. East tower of 4 storeys. Main range is
largely 2 storeys with attics. South front: symmetrical; 11 bays
plus billiard room wing. 3 canted bays of 2 storeys with 2 stone
gables between; rusticated and pilasters. 2 and 3-light stone,
mullioned and transomed windows; central round headed doorway with
keystone and bulls-eye window over; moulded cornice bearing carvings;
embattled parapet. North front: U-plan with central porch; plain
ashlar and rusticated pilasters. 2 storey hall windows to left of
porch of 3-lights with 'perpendicular' tracery under square heads;
similar first floor window over porch; other windows are stone
mullioned and mullioned and transomed under square heads with labels;
round porch hoods; embattled parapet with cornice below. East facade;
similar mullioned fenestration with 2 storey bow window; tower flanked
by capped, fluted pilasters. Internal features: hall in the baroque
style with a barrel-vaulted roof, coupled Ionic pilasters, a carved
wooden gallery; and an elaborately carved chimney piece in marble with
side-scrolls originally intended for Eaton Hall; tapestry room designed
to house tapestries by Judocus de Vos with reset allegorical ceiling
painting said to be by Thornhill and a reset C18 fireplace with key-
pattern inlay; other rooms with baroque and Adamesque decoration and
reset Cl8 chimneypieces.
Aslet, Clive, "Minterne Magna I and II", in Country Life, Feb 21st, 1980
pp 498-501 and Feb 28th, 1980 pp 574-7. Newman J and Pevsner, N,
Buildings of England: Dorset, Penguin, 1972, pp 295-6, Taylor, N,
Minterne House and Leonard Stokes, manuscript notes.
Listing NGR: ST6603204184
View of the house through the trees.
Mansion Flats
Image by ktylerconk
They look as if they've been there forever and most possess a monumental grandeur which is hard to equate with a sudden speculative spree. But London's mansion blocks were the high density housing of their time and a source of much controversy and concern
The story sounds surprisingly contemporary. In the late nineteenth century central London was running out of space and wealthy bachelors and well-bred families were finding it difficult to locate suitable accommodation.
Flats were the obvious solution but in the eyes of the fashionable and the fastidious sharing a roof with total strangers was simply unthinkable.
Flats were damned with a double dose of original sin. Since the first to be built in London were philanthropic ventures, Model Dwellings for the deserving poor, they were forever equated with the lower orders and therefore beyond the pale.
But even worse, flats were foreign. The French, more specifically Parisians, lived in flats and everyone knew what a badly behaved, unhygienic, morally corrupt lot they were.
French flats, as R. Phene Spiers told the Royal Institute of Architects in 1871, were small and poorly designed, forced the upper classes to live in close proximity to their servants, and generally lacked refinement and sophistication.
In Paris, he continued, "utterly dissociated and discordant people" lived under one roof, but this would never do for London, where delicate English ladies would suffer "incalculable distress" if they encountered a common artisan on the stairs.
The French, he concluded, clinching the argument, "use very little water, believing they can wash themselves with the corner of a wet towel."
Convincing uptight English Victorians to live in flats was therefore a tall order, and there weren't many speculators keen to test the market.
When the first great mansion block, Albert Hall Mansions, was started in 1876 the developer Thomas Hussey worried that the scheme might fail and Norman Shaw, the architect, divided the block plan into three distinct sections, to be built separately, in an effort to minimise the risk.
As it turned out they had a winner on their hands and Albert Hall Mansions, with its ornate red-brick exterior, Dutch gables, triple windows, and iron balconies, kick-started the late-Victorian craze for mansion blocks which continued well into the new century.
Once Shaw had shown them how to do it more and more developers took the plunge and a rash of mansion blocks appeared in Kensington and St John's Wood, Marylebone and Maida Vale, Belsize Park and Battersea, Fulham and Chiswick.
As the fashion took hold whole streets were give over to mansion blocks Fitzgeorge and Fitzjames Avenue in West Kensington, Prince of Wales Drive in Battersea but the building frenzy came to a halt with the war, and never really revived.
Some exceptional mansion blocks were built in the thirties but thereafter the energy of the initial flurry was never reproduced.
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