WORTLEY COTTAGES

WORTLEY COTTAGES.

Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire.

1896

For the Earl of Lovelace.

Originally thatched but rebuilt by Voysey with slate roofs after a fire in 1914.

Wortley Cottages,
Image from The Studio, International Art Magazine (1897)

Cottages at Elmesthorpe,
Photo from Aymer Vallance, International Studio, No. 85, 1904.

Wortley Cottages
photo published in Country Life Illustrated 1901-02-23: Vol 9 Iss 216, p.254
and published in The Orchard number 11, p.77

Wortley Cottages, Elmesthorpe, photo courtesy of John Trotter

Wortley Cottages, photo on rightmove.co.uk

Wortley Cottages, Elmesthorpe, photo courtesy of John Trotter

Photo on www.rightmove.co.uk (2014)

Photo on unmitigatedengland.blogspot.de

Wortley Cottages, Elmesthorpe, photo courtesy of John Trotter

Photo by Brian Arnold on Historic England (Images of England)

Photo on unmitigatedengland.blogspot.de

Image from Simpson, C.F.A Voysey an architect of individuality, fig.17, p.45
RIBA Drawings Collection

Section from The British Architect, 8th January 1897.

Plans from Aymer Vallance, International Studio, No. 85, 1904
RIBA Drawings Collection

Text from The British Architect, 8th Janury 1897, p.22.

Photographs and Drawings Courtesy of The Royal Institute of British Architects.
Photographs, drawings, perspectives and other design patterns
at the Royal Institut of British Architects Drawings and Photographs Collection.
Images can be purchased.
The RIBA can supply you with conventional photographic or digital copies
of any of the images featured in RIBApix.

Link > RIBA Drawings Collection: all Voysey Images

Pevsner's Leicestershire & Rutland (with Elizabeth Williamson, 1984) says:

WORTLEY COTTAGES, a little to the N across the railway line. 1896, also by Voysey for Lord Lovelace, and also very characteristic of his style. Roughcast terrace with a big hipped Swithland slate roof; big chimneys and battered buttresses each end. Hipped roofs to paired porches (mostly with original doors on their sides) and to sculleries at the back, which are staggered against the front projections. The remaining original windows horizontal with mullions and leaded lights. A six-light one runs along the whole upper storey of each cottage under the eaves.

Source: Pevsner Architectural Guides at Yale University Press.

Link > www.voyseysociety.org

Description on Historic England

ELMESTHORPE STATION ROAD SP 49 NE (north east side)
1/26 Nos.1-6 Wortley Cottages inclusive 19/1/1970 II
6 cottages. Built in 1896 to the designs of C F A Voysey for Lord Lovelace of Kirkby Mallory. Brick, roughcast and whitewashed, with hipped Swithland slate roof. At each end of the front,a diagonal buttress. 6 roughcast stacks, those at the ends external. 2 storeys, 6 bays. The row is designed to appear as 3 symmetrical pairs. At the front, each pair has a central hipped porch with a 6 light leaded casement and a door in each side, 4 of these being the original close-boarded doors with decorative hinges. The central 4 mainly retain the original fenestration with single 4 light casements on each floor, those to the first floor with leaded glazing. No.1, to the left, has a 3 light C20 casement on each floor. No.6, to the right, has a C20 glazing bar casement on each floor. At the rear, each pair has a hipped outbuilding and several late C20 additions. Above, a continuous 6 light strip casement. Nos. 4 and 5 have altered glazing.

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The Six Cottages, Elmesthorpe, for the Earl of Lovelace, are particularly picturesque, and they are moreover, extremely commodious and compact. The porches coupled in pairs, with the great eaves of thatch brought over them, help to give a sense of shelter that suggests a hen cover ing her chickens. The bench outside each porch is the only addition to the bare necessities of a house, and yet this simple and inexpensive item betrays sympathy with the inmates — a reward of rest after honest labour. In touches of this sort Mr. Voysey betrays plainly the accord with humanity which softens the apparent austerity of his work. His "extras" do not take the form of ornament, not even of a decorated inscription setting forth the glory of the architect; but when they are apparent, they are invariably planned to yield some little pleasure to the occupants.
Source: The Studio, XI, 1897, p.24.

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References:

Wendy Hitchmough, CFA Voysey, London 1995, p.117.

The British Architect, XLVII, 1897, p. 24.

The Studio, XI, 1897, p.19&24; The Studio, XXXI, 1904, p.133.

Dekorative Kunst, I, 1897, p.246.

Country Life Illustrated 1901-02-23: Vol 9 Iss 216, p.254.

Dr Peter King, Wortley Cottages and the fire of 1914, in The Orchard no.13, 2024, pp. 33-38.

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Other cottages with thatched roofs in England.