Tudor Croft and attached garage, along with the entrance gateway, fernery and rose pergola

Summary

A detached house and garage, and entrance gateway built in 1934 in the Arts and Crafts style for industrialist Ron Crossley, containing an oak panelled room with inglenook by Robert “Mouseman” Thompson, with a fernery and long rose pergola built in the contemporary garden.

Reasons for Designation

Tudor Croft and attached garage, entrance gateway, fernery and rose pergola, built in 1934 for industrialist Ron Crossley to designs by Stephen H Clarke, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* a well-designed Arts and Crafts family home of the period, with a half-butterfly plan incorporating principal rooms overlooking the rear garden, and an attached garage, then a prerequisite of good-quality suburban houses;

* designed for a north-east industrialist, the house, entrance gateway and rose pergola showcase the handmade brown Tudor bricks and other brick varieties manufactured by the family firm of Crossley Building Products Ltd;

* externally, well-crafted details include the use of small brown tiles, sprocketed eaves, prominent stacks, leaded and coloured-glass windows, eyebrow and canted bay windows, an oak panelled front door and dated and initialled oak loggia/balcony beam by Robert Thompson, the Mouseman of Kilburn;

* it retains much original historic fabric, and has an unusually modern laid-out L-shaped principal room combining drawing and dining rooms in one space, fitted-out with exceptionally crafted oak panelling and inglenook fireplace by Robert Thompson;

* in contrast with the rest of the house, the bathroom is luxuriously Art Deco in style, fully tiled with tesserae detailing, and an alcove bath and matching washbasin both faced in onyx with contemporary fittings;

* the fernery is a rare survival of a specialist glasshouse with consummately constructed rockwork for the propagation of exotic and delicate ferns.

Historic interest:
* master craftsman Robert Thompson (1876-1955) was a renowned Arts and Crafts woodcarver whose oak furniture is identified by a trademark relief-carved mouse. The majority of his architectural work was ecclesiastical in nature, making his domestic commissions, such as Tudor Croft, rarer.

Group value:
* the house and subsidiary features have strong group value with its Grade II-registered contemporary garden.

History

Ronald (Ron) Gibson Crossley (1891-1949) was a director of Crossley Building Products Limited and grandson of John Crossley, who from 1871 ran a brickworks in Commondale, near Guisborough, latterly with his son Alfred, which closed in 1885. Alfred emigrated to America, where Ron was born, before the family returned in 1893 and bought back the brickworks together with the whole village of Commondale, then becoming very successful, owning five brickworks and four early builders’ merchants’ depots.

In the early 1930s Ron decided to build a new family home on open land on the edge of Guisborough with spectacular views of the North York Moors with Highcliffe and Roseberry Topping (no longer clearly visible) to the south and south-west. The house, dated 1934, was built in an Arts and Crafts style on the northern edge of the site, with a large garden (presently being assessed for registration) then laid out in the shallow valley through which Hutton Beck flowed. Proposed plans signed by Stephen H Clarke, Architect, 108 Borough Road East, Middlesbrough, were approved by Guisborough Urban District Council on 14 September 1934 subject to approval by South Teesside Town Planning Committee. On the ground floor was an entrance/stair hall with a garden hall leading off, L-shaped drawing room with dining recess, study, cloakroom, and kitchen, pantry, scullery and larder, with a laundry, WC and coal shed beyond opening into the small yard between the house and garage. There were four bedrooms, three with fireplaces, and a maid’s room, bathroom, WC and linen cupboard.

The design was much as built with the exception of the garden elevation where a hipped roof loggia was replaced by a loggia with a balcony above. This in turn led to the central south bedroom being built with a door onto the balcony and interconnecting door with the main bedroom, probably being used as a dressing room rather than bedroom.

Both house and garden showcased the Crossleys’ bricks. Their hand-made Tudor style bricks were used for the house and entrance gateway (hence the name), with the pillars of a long rose pergola built from a variety of different bricks. The gateway also incorporated two terracotta plaques by Walter Scott, a skilled local potter and sculptor employed by the Crossleys’ at the Commondale Brickworks to design garden ornaments. A collection of his terracotta urns, planters, gnomes, pixies, fairies and animals were arranged around the garden. The oak front door and panelled drawing and dining room with inglenook fireplace were designed by woodcarver Robert Thompson (known as the Mouseman of Kilburn), who also provided the dated and initialled loggia beam. An accounts book held by the still-extant Thompson company show that the room was fitted out between January and April 1935 for R G Crossley, Esq of Guisboro, York, at a cost of £182.16, with a sketch drawing with measurements of the inglenook.

A roofed fernery was built close to the house, along with an aviary (now altered). Rockwork features and the glass roof suggest it may have been used to grow filmy ferns (Trichomanes and Hymenophylums) requiring high humidity and it bears the hallmarks of the specialist Backhouse Nursery of York, including one of their “signature” rocks. It is also recorded that William Herbert Everard, an employee of the Backhouses, worked at Tudor Croft. The craze for ferns (known as pteridomania) was a Victorian phenomenon, with delicate ferns housed in ferneries (specialist glasshouses), few of which now survive, and more hardy varieties grown outdoors in rock grottoes. That the fernery here was built in the early 1930s suggests that exotic ferns were a particular interest of Mr Crossley.

Following Ron Crossley’s death in 1949, Tudor Croft was advertised for sale in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury in October 1952, described as “A charming country residence of medium size built in 1934 of expensive construction”. It was bought by Anthony (Tony) and Edna Heagney and their family, who then undertook a ten-year programme to restore and conserve the by-then overgrown and neglected garden. The house and garden remain in the Heagney family ownership (2025).

The original house layout remains largely unaltered with the exception of the combining of the scullery and pantry. The timber and glazed roof structure of the fernery rotted due to humidity and has more recently been replaced by an aluminium-framed replica.

Details

Detached house and garage, and entrance gateway, built in 1934 for industrialist Ron Crossley, containing a panelled room by Robert “Mouseman” Thompson, with a fernery and long rose pergola built in the contemporary garden. House built in the Arts and Crafts style.

MATERIALS: house, garage and entrance gateway of handmade, brown “Tudor” bricks manufactured by Crossleys, with brown tile roofs, dressings and gate detailing. Rose pergola built of different types of bricks manufactured by Crossleys and cedar beams. Fernery built of sandstone blocks with an aluminium-framed, glazed roof.

PLAN: two-storey house based on a butterfly plan with the central entrance flanked by splayed wings with a garage attached at an angle to one wing to form a small, triangular enclosed yard between the two with a flat-roofed outshot along the eastern side. Close to the house is a small, rectangular fernery. Entrance gateway in line with the front door of the house. Rose pergola in rear garden curving away from the house and then continuing in a straight line along one side of garden.

EXTERIOR: house and garage in stretcher bond with rowlock course (courses of bricks laid on the narrow or face edge so their ends are visible) plinth bands, lintels and sills, and gable verges, with concave-shaped brick mullions. House has gabled and hipped roof with sprocketed eaves and garage has gablet roof, both with concrete eaves, square-section iron gutters and iron downpipes. Windows are rectangular with fixed and casement metal frames and leaded, multi-pane lights, some with coloured glass decoration; some first-floor windows and ground-floor windows on the east side elevation have been replaced with replica windows of a similar appearance.

N front facing Stokesley Road has central doorway recessed in porch with wider hipped roof also over vertical side windows in angle between wings. Porch has small, polygonal, stone-flagged forecourt, semi-circular step, chamfered jambs with wide segmental tile arch, central light, bell pull to right and letterbox slot set in porch return. Segmental-arched door frame and multi-panelled door by Robert Thompson, both with inset relief-carved mouse (signature of RT), hand-made iron latch and door knocker. Tripartite, mullioned window on first floor with brick parapet with carved stone head. Wings have irregular fenestration with variety of sizes of vertical windows. Wing gables have central stacks, that to W gable projects from wall and chimney widens on ground floor to include two small windows. Both gables have two first-floor windows, with ground floor of the N gable screened by yard wall between house and angled garage to left. Screen wall has round-headed archway with stone head keystone and plank and batten gate with iron drop handle. Garage front has almost full-height and width opening. Outer side elevation has off-set vertical widow.

Irregular S front facing garden of three bays with third bay a slightly projecting gable and roof gabled to left with gable stack and hipped to right with recessed side of single-storey outshot (containing inglenook) and tall brick stack. Loggia to centre with oak beam inscribed 19 R G C 34 and a central post and side struts, one with relief-carved mouse. Balcony above with brick balustrade wall. Loggia has small, red tiles and two oak doors with multi-pane glazing, that to the left also with side lights. Balcony has sliding, multi-pane French door (replacing original) with tiled eyebrow over. To left, first bay has single-storey, canted bay window and a wide first-floor window with eye-brow. To the right, third bay has double-height canted bay window with a parapet.

E side elevation has inglenook outshot to left with narrow windows in the returns, large, projecting central chimney and hipped roof. Above, chimney projects from wall-face, flanked by narrow windows, and rises through house roof to culminate in group of three stacks with outer two diamond-set. To right the elevation has irregularly spaced and sized windows, two on the ground floor with unleaded replacement windows. Beyond right-hand corner of house is a flat-roofed, single-storey outshot with window to left and parapet, angled at right-hand end with mid-height coal hole. Yard doorway between outshot and rear of garage has two concrete steps and plank and batten door with drop handle. Rear wall of garage has two windows.

INTERIOR: house retains many original features, including doors, architraves and skirtings throughout. Room doors and in-built cupboard and wardrobe doors have segmental-arched single panels with recessed segmental detailing to top rail, many room doors with small bronze decorations attached. Simple, square-cut timber architraves with wider top rails. Main ground-floor doors, architraves and skirtings are oak, with handmade iron doorhandles. Painted white on first floor and ancillary areas with art deco style doorhandles. Most windows have exposed, concave shaped brick mullions and/or jambs.

Entrance hall approximately triangular with walls of textured plasterwork and ceiling of closely-spaced oak joists, with exposed joists in other ground-floor rooms except kitchen. Doors open off each side with staircase and brick, round-headed archway to rear leading to corridor to garden. Staircase has modified oak balustrade retaining closed string and square newels with inserted decorative ironwork balustrades. Herringbone brickwork beneath with under-stair cupboard. Windows flanking entrance door have coloured glass scenes, tile sills and oak pelmets.

L-shaped drawing and dining room on SE side with doorways off entrance hall and garden corridor. Joists running in two directions with two cross beams set at right-angles and supported on stone corbels. Three-quarter height, multi-panel oak panelling with a wavy-carved top rail by Robert Thompson. Multi-panels also carved into inside panels of the doors, plate racks above door architraves and some windows, with rough-textured walls over. Inglenook fireplace in E wall of drawing room with heavy bressumer beam and curved overmantel with giant dentils, panelled inglenook incorporating small cupboards with handmade, iron latches and hinges over stone fireplace with relief fern detailing, fixed side benches, both with mice carved on the outer arms, lit by narrow, leaded fire windows with fleur-de-lis coloured glass and cylinder glass and iron-framed wall lights, herringbone block floor. Canted bay window has panelling below, with oak sill and pelmet. Panelling on N wall of the dining area has central raised section with a cross-framed and glazed display cabinet, panelled cupboard to the left (with doors opening on the opposite side in the kitchen), both with handmade, iron latches and hinges, and panelled serving hatch to right which slides up, plate rack with mouse over.

Study in SW corner has fireplace in outer W wall flanked by two round-headed niches containing leaded windows with coloured glass floral motifs. Fireplace (now with an electric fire in front) has grey brick hearth and mantelpiece with projecting oak mantel and niches have oak shelves beneath the windows. Canted bay window has tiled sill and oak pelmet.

Kitchen has servants’ bell indicator, larder has white, glazed brick tiles. Beyond kitchen back door is a small lobby with external door into the enclosed yard and opposing plank and batten doors with thumb latches to a WC with half-tiled walls of cream glazed tiles and a laundry in the outshot with half-tiled walls of green and white glazed tiles and a deep, double ceramic sink on shaped ceramic stands.

First-floor landing has three-light window with a coloured glass landscape and sunburst and art deco frame. Master bedroom with a canted bay window has in-built wardrobe and interconnecting door to smaller room with the French door onto the balcony. Bathroom retains original features in an art deco style with fully tiled walls of brown tile skirting band, stepped orange and yellow tiling above and a cornice band with a decorative row of green, black and gold mosaic tesserae beneath a row of orange tiles. On one side an onyx-faced bath is set into a tiled wall recess with stepped upper corners and inset tile soap/accessory dish, flanked by narrow, vertical cupboards. Between the two windows is an onyx-faced washbasin with slender, metal outer legs and art deco taps, and tile double soap dish with projecting toothbrush holder set in the wall above. Opposite the bath recess is a barrel-vaulted recess with stepped upper corners.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES

ENTRANCE GATEWAY: main entrance off Stokesley Road has gateway of Tudor brick with curved side walls, outer and inner gate piers with triangular, tiled caps. Set in each side wall is relief-moulded terracotta panel of a lying-down lion and two small Yorkshire rose roundels. Double, timber gates with decorative, pierced timber band above vertical, shiplap planks, shaped top rails, iron split, shaped strap hinges and pintle hinges with inner corner covers set into marble floor blocks. Left-hand gate has an inset, relief-carved name panel.

FERNERY

EXTERIOR: close to south-west corner of the house is a small, rectangular fernery. Walls of large, sandstone blocks dressed with a herringbone pattern and an upper stone band with an aluminium frame of clerestory windows and hipped, glass roof (replicating same with a timber frame which rotted due to the high humidity). East elevation facing onto house patio has offset doorway with double, aluminium-framed glazed doors.

INTERIOR: central stone-flagged area with vertical rockwork of water-worn Westmorland Limestone, with cavities between the rocks filled with soil and ferns, built up against stone walls. Piping feeds a small fountain to top of the rockwork leading down into a small grotto and pool, then around a rill to another small pool and grotto. Second run of water, controlled by a stopcock about two-thirds of the way up the rockwork, flows down over the rocks to meet the first water flow. Fountains and grottos are decorated with terracotta garden ornaments. Backhouse “signature” rock at the top of the rockwork in the north-east corner.

ROSE PERGOLA: northern end of the rose pergola starts shortly beyond SW corner of the fernery, curving round to then run in straight north-south line along western side of garden. Cedar cross and longitudinal beams (some beams replaced) rest on 48 brick piers with stone flag caps, with horizontal support wires stretched between the piers. Piers built of different types of Crossley bricks and varying in appearance. Outer two piers close to the house are circular, incorporating shaped bricks of differing widths with wider, segmental bases. Other piers are square, of varying colours and brick detailing including alternating protruding rows or chamfered corners. Beneath the pergola is a stone, crazy paving path.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 30 October 2025 to update the Address

Sources

Books and journals
Where the Mouseman Worked his Magic in Country Life, ,Vol. , (August 30, 2007), 64-69

Websites
Thompson, Robert [known as the Mouseman of Kilburn] (1876–1955), woodcarver | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 31 March, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/59038
Tudor Croft, Mike Heagney, January 2023, Yorkshire Gardens Trust, accessed 31 March 2025 from https://yorkshiregardenstrust.org.uk/research/sites/tudor-croft

Other
Tudor Croft Garden Map, Mike Heagney
Unpublished site visit notes by Professor Gillian Parker, presently researching a PhD on the Backhouses of York at the Dept of Archaeology, University of York.
Original plans, elevations and sections of Proposed House at Guisborough for R Crossley Esq, stamped and approved on Sept 14th, 1934, held in Teesside Archives, Middlesbrough, reference: DC-GU-27-38.

End of official list entry