Ashwell Bury, at Ashwell

Ashwell, Hertfordshire

Ashwell is a village and civil parish situated about four miles north of Baldock in Hertfordshire.It has a wealth of architecture spanning several centuries. The dates almost entirely from the 14th century and is renowned for its ornate church tower which stands at , and is crowned by an...

 in Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

, UK is an early 19th century house of white brick, perhaps originally built before 1836 for Edward George Fordham (1782–1868); altered c.1860, no doubt for Edward King Fordham (1810–99), who extended the family landholding; and then further remodelled, chiefly inside, by Sir Edwin Lutyens

Edwin Lutyens

Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, OM, KCIE, PRA, FRIBA was a British architect who is known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era...

 for Mrs. Phyllis Fordham in 1922-26. The house is of two storeys and five bays, but the central bay is wide, with a triple sash window above the front door. Lutyens replaced the cornice with eaves but retained the existing slate roof and chimneystacks, inserted new sash windows and covered the brick with a white cement. His most notable addition is the new staircase hall, which gives the house an effective focus and a touch of grandeur. It was fitted into a square rear courtyard and has an octagonal lantern and glazed internal windows on three sides of the first floor with mirror glass on the fourth. The lowest steps of the stair fill the full width of the well, before narrowing to the width of the second and third flights. Two other rooms have Lutyens chimneypieces. The gardens were altered by Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll

Gertrude Jekyll was an influential British garden designer, writer, and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the UK, Europe and the USA and contributed over 1,000 articles to Country Life, The Garden and other magazines.-Early life:...

in 1908-09.

External links

• http://www.burkes-peerage.net/
• http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/