This building was intended to have been erected on an estate in the neighbourhood of London, for the solicitor acting for the lessee, a builder who was erecting numerous first-class houses upon the property, and who required his solicitor to be often with him. The gentleman was a bachelor, and this was, for a time, to have been his private town dwelling. It was only to consist of a basement and ground floor, but the walls were to be made sufficiently thick to enable the structure to be carried upwards when the estate was fully covered, and the house would be required for a family.
The plan was arranged after the legal gentleman’s own directions: a is the small entrance hall, leading to the inner hall, from which the living room b, and the picture gallery f, are gained; the gallery contained a choice collection of cabinet pictures, hunting subjects by a celebrated painter; c is a small bedroom, which could be enclosed or shut off from the living room by a lifting-screen, worked somewhat similar to a lifting shutter. The screen was to be covered on the side next the living room with paintings; d is the bath
Plan.
room, e the closet, h is the dining-room with its lift, i, from the pantry in the basement; j was a small iron staircase leading down to the stable, where some valuable hunters were to be kept. Under the dining-room was the coachhouse; no rooms were over the stabling. The servants’ entrance was in the area. The exterior of the building had a plain Gothic Tudor front.
The vignette shows a corbel in the French cut-wood style.
