Voysey comes to town
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey was one of the great domestic architects of the Arts and Crafts movement, famous for his low-slung, landscape-hugging country houses, with their sweeping roof lines, rendered walls, low-ceilinged interiors, and meticulous details. But at 14 and 16 Hans Road, built in 1891–92 and just a stone’s throw from Harrods, is evidence of what Voysey could do when designing town houses.
Here in Knightsbridge, an area where many houses were built in the late-19th century in the ‘Queen Anne’ style, the emphasis is on tall, narrow buildings and the dominant material is red brick. Voysey went with this theme but played his own variation on it, with stone dressings, shaped parapets and neat tall oriel windows above the entrances. The house numbers are in cartouches that are shaped using a variant on Voysey’s trademark heart motif, and the wooden doors have striking iron hinges. The houses were designed for Archibold Grove, a Liberal MP and the designs were well liked, both for the elegant exteriors and the internal layout, with most rooms benefiting from plenty of natural light. The overall proportions of the houses were praised in the press, too, as was the restrained use of carved decoration.
Voysey was to have designed the neighbouring number 12 too, but Archibold Grove’s liberality was wanting when it came to the fee, and the architect and client fell out. As a result, the commission for this house, beyond Voysey’s pair in the picture below, went to A H Mackmurdo.
C F A Voysey's 14 and 16 Hans Road, with A H Mackmurdo's 12 Hans Road beyond
