St Joseph's Hut, Broxwood Court

Summary

A garden house thought to date to the 1860s and attributed to William Andrews Nesfield.

Reasons for Designation

St Joseph’s Hut, Broxwood Court, a garden house thought to date to the 1860s, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the garden house, is a distinctive design for its surrounding veranda and for the Catholic associations in its decoration.

Historic interest:

* for its connection with prominent Victorian landscape designer William Andrews Nesfield.

Group value:

* with other nearby sites connected with the Snead-Cox family that demonstrate their Catholic faith; these include the Biblically named walks in the Registered Park and Garden, the chapel in the gardens, and the larger Chapel of the Holy Family.

History

Broxwood Court is a country house set in parkland within a wider agricultural estate. The first house at Broxwood was commissioned in 1858 by the landowner, Richard Snead-Cox (1820-1899). The original architect was C F Hansom (1817-1888), though only the (extant) stable and service wing of his design was completed. The main house was built in the 1890s by Leonard Stokes (1858-1925) but this was demolished in 1955 and replaced with the current house. The surrounding landscaped park and garden (Grade II registered, National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1000876) was designed in 1860 by William Andrews Nesfield (1793-1881). The Snead-Cox family were Roman Catholics, and their main place of worship was around a quarter of a mile to the north-east of the house at the Chapel of the Holy Family (Grade II listed, NHLE entry 1349945, now a private house), which was also designed for the family by C F Hansom and built 1863.

The family’s Catholicism is expressed in the gardens, which are laid out with features given names such as Our Lady’s Walk and include a small private chapel of 1874-5. St Joseph’s Hut, a pavilion in the gardens, is thought to date to the 1860s.

Details

A garden house thought to date to the 1860s and attributed to William Andrews Nesfield.

MATERIALS: brick with a timber veranda, slate roof.

PLAN: rectangular, orientated with its shorter ends to north-west and south-east.

EXTERIOR: single storey under a pitched roof with gable ends to the north-west and south-east. The building has a veranda around all four sides, with the veranda roof supported by chamfered timber posts with diagonal braces. The veranda roof is incorporated with the main roof as a catslide to the long north-eastern and south-western slopes, while to the shorter sides it meets the gable ends as a lean-to. The centre of the south-western catslide rises to a small, pitched roof porch for the building’s doorway. Walls are brick in stretcher bond, tied by a horizontal timber at window cill level. The door and windows are timber, with the windows having ogee headed lights with coloured glass in the tracery above.

In the front, south-west facing elevation is a single window to either side of the central glazed timber double door, which has a brick threshold and arched surround. The south-east elevation has a window with three mullions, and above the veranda roof in the exposed part of the gable is a small stone niche housing a statue of Our Lady; this is a replacement for the original statue of St Joseph that had been damaged. A brick chimney stack projects from the solid, long north-eastern rear elevation. The north-west short end is solid.

INTERIOR: the interior is open to the roof. The walls are exposed brick, with the timber ties visible in the exterior seen here too. The floor is concrete. A simple brick fireplace is in the centre of the north-eastern wall.

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