Clouds House

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Clouds House, garden view seen from the southwest

Clouds House , also known as Clouds , is a former manor house near the village of East Knoyle in the English county of Wiltshire . The building, which dates from the 19th century, is a listed building and is listed as Grade II * .

history

The Clouds estate is named after John Clouds, who lived here in the 16th century in a country house that was part of the hamlet of Milton - now part of East Knoyle. The property was changed several times through amalgamation with other properties or sales of lands. In addition to Clouds House, other mansions and various homesteads have now belonged to the property. In 1551 John Stephens of Portsmouth bought the property, presumably acting on behalf of Robert Goldsborough. Goldsborough then had a representative new building built. After that, the property stayed in the family for several generations before Augustin Goldsborough sold it to William Coker of Frampton in 1658. The next owner was Nathaniel Still in 1672, whose family owned the property until 1828. Clouds then passed to Henry Seymour, whose son Alfred was planning a new home here. He commissioned the architect Edward Blore with the first drafts, which were not implemented due to financial problems. In 1876 Alfred Seymour sold the property to Percy Scawen Wyndham (1835–1911) , who came from the English nobility . At the time, the property was 4207 acres (approximately 1700 hectares ).

Wyndham had the existing building demolished in 1881 and then built a new country house nearby. The new building was built according to plans by Philip Webb , a main representative of the architecture of the Arts and Crafts Movement . The construction costs for the 1,883 completed residential property totaled 100,000 pounds sterling . The Wyndham family lived in the building from 1885, even if the interior was not completed until 1886. As early as 1889, a fire caused considerable damage to the building, in which a large part of the interior was destroyed. Subsequent restoration work lasted through 1891 and cost a further £ 40,000. The Wyndham family used Clouds House as a country estate and held various social gatherings here. In addition to celebrating with friends, their property also served as a meeting place for the intellectual group The Souls . The famous guests included the painter Edward Burne-Jones and the future Prime Minister Arthur Balfour .

After the death of Percy Scawen Wyndham, his son George Wyndham inherited the property. He had electric lights installed and minor renovations in the house. He died in 1913 and bequeathed it to his son Percy Lyulph Wyndham, which only a year later as a soldier in World War I died. Then his cousin Guy Richard Wyndham inherited the house, who left it empty from 1924. In 1936, Wyndham sold the property for £ 39,000 to a real estate developer who divided the property. Clouds House, with 26 acres remaining, was owned by Percy Houghton-Brown in 1938, who made numerous changes to the building.

The house was sold in 1944 to the Church of England Incorporated Society for Providing Homes for Waifs and Strays , a church-based organization for homeless children. The non-profit organization Clouds Estate Trustees then acquired the building and from 1965 set up a school for children with behavioral problems. In 1983 Peter and Margaret Ann McCann founded a therapy center for drug and alcohol addicts at Clouds House. Since May 2007 the center has been operated by the non-profit organization Action on Addiction and has been under the patronage of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge since 2012 .

Architecture and equipment

Percy Scawen Wyndham commissioned Philip Webb to build a country estate for his family and guests. The architect designed an eclectic style building with architectural references from the 14th to the 18th centuries. The house has a limestone clad facade and is divided into a basement, two floors and an attic with a tiled hipped roof . In the center of the building is a two-story living hall that receives daylight through glass roofs. The other rooms are grouped around this hall. On the main floor there were two salons to the south, connected by double doors, with a balcony in front of a loggia. The utilities were located in the northern area and the bedrooms were on the first floor.

During the renovations initiated by Percy Houghton-Brown in the 1930s, gables, bay windows and high chimneys were partially removed and the attic was expanded in the northern area. In addition, he had the entrance area relocated from the north to the west. The later owners also made extensive changes to the building. Nevertheless, many elements of Philip Webb's design have been preserved inside. These include stucco ornaments, wood paneling, wall cabinets, and fireplaces, including some with Delft tiles .

Greenery tapestry , after a design by John Henry Dearle, 1892

Most of the Clouds House wallpapers and rugs were designed by William Morris . The large carpet for the salon, known as the Clouds-Carpet , is now in the University of Cambridge . A tapestry designed by John Henry Dearle for Morris & Co used to hang in the great hall of Clouds House. Today the carpet entitled Greenery belongs to the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . A picture The Ascension , painted by Edward Burne-Jones after a mosaic in the Roman church of San Paolo dentro le Mura , originally hung in the stairwell of Clouds House and was destroyed in the fire in 1889.

literature

  • Caroline Dakers: Clouds, the biography of a country house . Yale University Press, New Haven 1993, ISBN 0-300-05776-8 .
  • Sheila Kirk: Philip Webb, pioneer of arts & crafts architecture . Wiley Academy, Chichester 2005, ISBN 0-470-86808-2 .
  • William R. Lethaby: Philip Webb and his work . Raven Oak Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-906997-00-3 .
  • Fiona MacCarthy: The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination . Faber and Faber, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-571-22861-4 .
  • Claudia Renton: Those wild Wyndhams, three sisters at the heart of power . William Collins, London 2014, ISBN 978-0-00-754489-9 .
  • Giles Worsley: England's Lost Houses: From the Archives of Country Life . Aurum Press, London 2002, ISBN 978-1-84513-614-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on Cloude House on the National Heritage List for England (accessed August 3, 2019)
  2. ^ AP Baggs, Elizabeth Crittall, Jane Freeman, and Janet H Stevenson: Parishes: East Knoyle in DA Crowley: A History of the County of Wiltshire , Volume 11, Downton Hundred; Elstub and Everleigh Hundred, London, 1980, pp. 82-103. British History Online (accessed August 3, 2019) .
  3. ^ Giles Worsley: England's Lost Houses: From the Archives of Country Life , p. 85.
  4. ^ AP Baggs, Elizabeth Crittall, Jane Freeman, and Janet H Stevenson: Parishes: East Knoyle in DA Crowley: A History of the County of Wiltshire , Volume 11, Downton Hundred; Elstub and Everleigh Hundred, London, 1980, pp. 82-103. British History Online (accessed August 3, 2019) .
  5. ^ Claudia Renton: Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power , p. 25.
  6. ^ Claudia Renton: Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power , p. 120.
  7. ^ AP Baggs, Elizabeth Crittall, Jane Freeman, and Janet H Stevenson: Parishes: East Knoyle in DA Crowley: A History of the County of Wiltshire , Volume 11, Downton Hundred; Elstub and Everleigh Hundred, London, 1980, pp. 82-103. British History Online (accessed August 3, 2019) .
  8. ^ Sheila Kirk: Philip Webb: Pioneer of Arts & Crafts Architecture , pp. 141-142.
  9. ↑ Entry on Cloude House on the National Heritage List for England (accessed August 3, 2019)
  10. ^ Claudia Renton: Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power , p. 363.
  11. ^ Claudia Renton: Those Wild Wyndhams: Three Sisters at the Heart of Power , p. 371.
  12. ^ AP Baggs, Elizabeth Crittall, Jane Freeman, and Janet H Stevenson: Parishes: East Knoyle in DA Crowley: A History of the County of Wiltshire , Volume 11, Downton Hundred; Elstub and Everleigh Hundred, London, 1980, pp. 82-103. British History Online (accessed August 3, 2019) .
  13. ^ Giles Worsley: England's Lost Houses: From the Archives of Country Life , p. 85.
  14. ^ Sheila Kirk: Philip Webb: Pioneer of Arts & Crafts Architecture , p. 300.
  15. ^ Sheila Kirk: Philip Webb: Pioneer of Arts & Crafts Architecture, p. 300.
  16. ↑ Information on patronage on the Action on Addiction website (accessed on August 4, 2019)
  17. ^ Sheila Kirk: Philip Webb: Pioneer of Arts & Crafts Architecture , p. 136.
  18. ↑ Entry on Cloude House on the National Heritage List for England (accessed August 3, 2019)
  19. ^ Sheila Kirk: Philip Webb: Pioneer of Arts & Crafts Architecture , p. 138.
  20. ↑ Caroline Arscott: Morris Carpets in the RIHA Journal, March 27, 2014
  21. ↑ Information on the Greenery carpet on the website of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  22. ^ Fiona MacCarthy: The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination , p. 325.

Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′ 44 "  N , 2 ° 10 ′ 38"  W.