9 Church Walk, including associated store

Summary

Private house, built in 1962-1964 for Imogen Holst, composer, arranger and conductor, to a design by HT and Elizabeth Cadbury-Brown: his is the design, hers the draughtsmanship and detailing. It was one of two contemporary houses the Cadbury-Browns built on the site, a former C18 bowling green on a level plain above the town, the other being 3 Church Walk (listed Grade II).

Reasons for Designation

9 Church Walk, Aldeburgh, a detached private dwelling built in 1962-1964 to designs by HT (Jim) and Betty Cadbury-Brown for Imogen Holst, along with a detached store, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* designed in relation to its garden, it displays a carefully conceived aesthetic effect derived from a clear idea of architectural space and light in which the varied fenestration pattern gives the house a structure and a sense of considerable complexity;
* the characteristic but simple internal treatment, including cork-tiled floors, plastered walls without cornices and skirting boards, full-height doorways, recessed curtain tracks, kitchen cupboards and a folding kitchen table, still survives;
* the internal plan-form survives largely intact, reflecting both the requirements and ideas of the best modern houses of the period, in which small and compact, but not cramped, exemplified a modern way of living.

Historic interest:

* as the home of Imogen Holst, a composer, conductor, educator and daughter of Gustav Holst, who is celebrated for her work alongside British composer Benjamin Britten and her contributions to C20 classical music.

Group value:

* with 3 Church Walk (listed Grade II), designed and built concurrently by the Cadbury-Browns as their own home with an identical design ethos. The two buildings demonstrate the remarkable creativity of English domestic architecture in the early 1960s by architects when at the peak of their careers.

History

9 Church Walk, Aldeburgh, was built in 1962-1964 for Imogen Holst, a composer, arranger and conductor, to a design by HT and Elizabeth Cadbury-Brown, who lived at 3 Church Walk (listed Grade II), which they also designed.

In 1956, Benjamin Britten, who had established the Aldeburgh Festival in 1948, had asked Cadbury-Brown to design a 500-seat concert hall on a former C18 bowling green, south of the Aldeburgh’s parish church. The project was abandoned due to a lack of funds and instead half the land was sold to the Cadbury-Browns, who sold another portion to Imogen Holst (1907-1984), a composer, conductor, educator and daughter of Gustav Holst, who had arrived in Aldeburgh in Spring 1952 to help Britten organise the Festival. She returned later in the same year to work on his opera Gloriana and subsequently stayed for the rest of her life, becoming Britten’s musical assistant and a co-director of the Festival from 1956 to 1977. The Cadbury Browns designed their own house at 3 Church Walk and simultaneously designed and paid for the building of 9 Church Walk, where Holst lived until her death. In thanking the Cadbury-Browns, she wrote ‘my IMMENSE and perpetual gratitude for the loveliest house in the world. I … send blessings in your direction for having enabled me to get on with my work in such heavenly quiet and solitude and comfort’. The living room still contains her writing desk along with Gustav Holst’s oak music cupboard, made for him sometime between 1905 and 1934 when he taught at St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith. Imogen continued to use it to store her father’s music manuscripts. His upright piano also remains in the music room. The house became the property of the Holst Foundation after 1984. In 2010 it was given to the Britten-Pears Foundation (now Britten Pears Arts) who have restored and opened it to the public as an artists' residence and holiday rental.

HT Cadbury Brown (1913-2009), known as Jim Cadbury-Brown, trained at the Architectural Association (AA) from 1930 to 1935. He worked for a year with Erno Goldfinger and established his own practice from 1937. After the Second World War, he was given the commission for the central concourse of the Festival of Britain exhibition site and entrances to the ‘The Land of Britain’ and ‘The People of Britain’ exhibitions. He was assisted there by the American-born architect Elizabeth (Betty) Dale (née Elwyn, 1922-2002), and they were married in 1953. The couple enjoyed a close and productive professional partnership.

Details

Private house, built in 1962-1964 for Imogen Holst, composer, arranger and conductor, to a design by HT and Elizabeth Cadbury-Brown: his is the design, hers the draughtsmanship and detailing. It was one of two contemporary houses the Cadbury-Browns built on the site, a former C18 bowling green on a level plain above the town, the other being 3 Church Walk (listed Grade II).

MATERIALS: of pink Marks Tey brick with a bituminous felt roof.

PLAN: single-storey, comprising a square range for the entrance hall, living room, kitchen and bathroom, and offset to its north a smaller rectangular range for a double bedroom and music room. A contemporary, detached store stands immediately to its north.

EXTERIOR: the main entrance is positioned at the north-east corner, in the re-entrant angle between the two offset ranges, and comprises a plain wooden door beneath a deep hood with a painted timber fascia. Windows are a mix of fixed lights of square, horizontal or rectangular shape of varied sizes, and a mix of side hung or top hung casements, some with transoms. All have deep wooden fascias except for the horizontal rectangular windows. The fixed-glazed elements to the windows are timber framed and the opening lights are metal framed. The living room on the west side has a metal-framed glass door. The north side windows to the music room and bedroom frame the view to the parish church so the weathervane could always be seen (a feature also deployed at 3 Church Walk).

INTERIOR: all walls are plastered, without cornices and skirting boards. Full-height doors to each room are veneered in iroko and have minimal frames (features also found in the Cadbury-Brown's 3 Church Walk). Floors are cork tiled except for the living room which is of mosaic-laid parquet with a thin cork border. Windows cills are of black quarry tiles. The windows in the living room, bedroom and music room, along with the built-in wardrobe in the bedroom and shelving system in the music room, are concealed behind floor length curtains hung from tracks recessed into the ceiling.

The open-plan living room is partly lit by a tall skylight or 'light scoop’. Original fireplace on east wall has metal frame and black quarry tiles to the surround and hearth. The remainder of the wall has the original shelving system with metal uprights and brackets and wooden shelves. Felt-lined back-to-back doors give access to a music room in the north-west range. This is soundproofed with absorbent board. The original shelving system (identical to the living room) is on the north, east and west walls. In the double bedroom, original Anglepoise lamp mounted on the west wall. In-built wardrobes on the north side. Kitchen with original cupboards, sink and folding table placed beneath a horizontal window for views to the garden. Bathroom modernised.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: immediately to the north of the house is a detached store incorporating a coal bin. It is constructed from brick with a fair-faced concrete floor and bituminous felt roof. Its walls are blind and on its south side is a plain wooden door.

Sources

Websites
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: entry for Henry Thomas [Jim] Cadbury-Brown, accessed 23 August 2024 from https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/101519
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: entry for Imogen Holst, accessed 23 August 2023 from https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/31251
Information on 9 Church Walk from the Holst Archive website, accessed 23 August 2024 from http://www.imogenholst.org/explore/church-walk/
Obituary for HT Cadbury-Brown from The Guardian, accessed 23 August 2023 from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/jul/13/obituary-ht-cadbury-brown
Holst Archive: Invoices, receipts, accounts, budgets, plans and correspondence relating to the building and development of 9 Church Walk., accessed 27 August 2024 from https://www.bpacatalogue.org/archive/HOL-2-16-7
Obituary for Elizabeth Cadbury-Brown from The Guardian, accessed 15 October 2024 from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/may/17/guardianobituaries.arts

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