This building is nicely sited at one end of Daventry High Street, facing up the street. Its frontage therefore acts as an attractive focal point as one looks towards it, and the white stucco finish draws the eye. What I thought I was looking at was the 18th-century idea of a Tudor-period gothic house front. The battlements, octagonal corner turrets, friezes with quatrefoils, and windows with dripstones and ornate glazing bars all point to this. Even the white stucco feels right: Horace Walpole’s famous faux-gothic house, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, is similarly white – he called it his ‘paper house’, referring both to the white finish and the fragility conjured up by the style. This example, more four-square and turreted, doesn’t look particularly fragile, but is no less striking, and a pleasant surprise to come across among the modern shop fronts and market stalls.
But there’s a twist. According to the description in the listing entry of this house, the core of the building actually is 16th or 17th century. So there’s a genuine Tudor or Jacobean house lurking underneath this handsome sham. Little do the ’Tiny Uns’ who attend day care here today realise what a cradle of history they occupy.
I like it! In that cosy world of never-get-round-to-doing-it I'll build me one of these in my back garden, next to the Anglo-Saxon arch and the other things I've promised to build there. Then it won't matter if the slugs decimate the beans. The little corner turrets are particularly enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely house - I have a weakness for play gothic.
ReplyDeleteI believe Walpole called Strawberry Hill his ‘paper house’ because so much of the gothic tracery and carving inside was actually papier-mâché.
What a lovely house - I have a weakness for play gothic.
ReplyDeleteI believe Walpole called Strawberry Hill his ‘paper house’ because so much of the gothic tracery and carving inside was actually papier-mâché.