18th to 19th century Arts and Crafts house, Pond Mead, High Street, Widdington (EHER 81073)

A house with late 18th century origins that was remodelled in the Arts and Crafts style at the beginning of the 20th century.

September 2023. Level 3 building survey. Pond Mead is an expansive building which truly embodies the spirit of the Arts and Crafts movement. It has busy elevations, with differing design elements and stylistic choices from one façade to another. The multiple ridge-lines and asymmetric floor plan are a technique synonymous with the Arts and Crafts movement. This is usually achieved by intentional design choices. Pond Mead, however, has a slightly less deliberate narrative. The earliest depiction, on the 1777 Chapman and André map, of a building on the plot is a small, rectangular and adjacent to the road. This likely represents a small timber-framed cottage that forms the basis for range 3. By the 1839 tithe map, the building has been extended to the north-east, forming an L-shaped building. The north-eastern wing is likely the foundation for the north-western half of ranges 4 and 5. Due to the vast amount of renovation work over the years, it is difficult to say how much of the original timber-framed cottage survives. The next expansion of Pond Mead occurred sometime in the mid 19th century, changing the footprint into a square with a wing projecting to the north-east. Historic mapping shows that the building was then extended again between 1896 and 1919, giving the building its current layout. The graffiti recorded in room 16 implies a construction date of 1902 or earlier for range 1. As this range is also the only range that uses Stretcher bond for the plinth, as opposed to English and Flemish-bond used for the other plinths, this was probably the last addition to Pond Mead. The use of Stretcher bond is generally dated to the later 19th century and became the almost invariable choice for brick bonding from then on. Its reasonable to assume it was during this period that the Arts and Crafts styling was embraced, and was likely spearheaded by Violet Mary Moore-Dillon, as indicated by the initials VMMD on the gable of range 2. It is somewhat unusual for a female figure to be immortalised in this way during this time period, it would be usual for a patriarch of the family to acknowledged instead. Perhaps this is evidence Violet was never married or widowed by the time she renovated Pond Mead. As well as the multiple ridge-lines and building ranges, several other of the elements incorporated in to the elevations of Pond Mead are the result of those popularised by the movement. These include the use multiple front-facing gables, the areas of exposed timber-framing, the ceramic hanging-tiles on two of the gable-ends and the use of pebble-dash render. Timber-work was popular, especially exposing the timber-framing in a gable-end and enhancing the appearance with black timbers and white render (sometimes referred to as magpie work). Embossed patterns within the render was also fashionable as it was inspired by traditional pargeting, a craft with strong associations to East Anglia. A number of the windows used are also typical of this period. Oriel windows were originally fashionable during the 17th century, after which they fell in popularity. They made a resurgence during the Arts and Crafts movement as, similarly to the bay window, they allowed natural light to flood a room, a juxtaposition to stereotypical dark and dingy conditions of Victorian interiors. The single horned-sash window on the north-eastern elevation is surprising in its isolation, but not in its style, although it is entirely plausible this is merely the last surviving one of this kind. The difference in number of lights between the tops and bottoms of the sash window are very telling of this style of architecture. Large sheets of glass were now widely available and getting cheaper, allowing window manufacturers to create sash windows using a single pane of glass for each sash. However, this was felt to not be in-keeping with the desired visual of an Arts and Crafts building, so a compromise was found: dividing the upper sash into smaller panes and leaving the lower as larger panes. Plain, vertically planked timber-doors were a favourite choice, usually embellished with by elaborate hinges, knobs, and knockers, particularly when set in a recessed porch. Door furniture was an area where Arts and Crafts designers could exhibit their skill, especially as the plain door allowed the work to stand out. The front door at Pond Mead is great example of this. The door itself its a plain timber, while the hinges, handle and knocker are more decorative. The addition of a modest-sized stained glass window is a further display of hand-craftsmanship. Several of the surviving features inside the building can also be attributed to the Arts and Crafts movement. Fireplaces were a key feature of many rooms in this period, generally with timber surrounds or flanked by decorative tiles. There are nine fireplace surrounds in various rooms of Pond Mead, no two exactly alike. Some are cast-iron while others are timber, two have a full-height overmantle, some have flanking tiles and others are more plain. The fireplaces in rooms 16 and 17, both cast iron, appear to be dated to the Georgian period while the surround in room 14 is mid-Victorian in design, perhaps taking the ‘traditional is best’ ethos of the movement literally and using surrounds reclaimed from earlier housing. The hall was once the most important room of house, it was where families ate, talked and slept. Over the centuries, it shrunk in size to become a mere passageway by the Victorian period. In many Arts and Crafts homes, the hall was revived and once again became an important meeting place. As with room 8 at Pond Mead, they became usable rooms with fireplaces and double-height ceilings, trying to emulate the feel of open-plan hall-house of the medieval period. Other rooms in the house also evolved further from their Victorian counterparts. Service rooms emerged from the basements, with kitchens, larders and sculleries incorporated into the main body of the house. Range 3 of Pond Mead seems as the main contender for housing these spaces, particularly with the large range-size fireplace in room 9. The staircase at the rear, in room 10, would have likely lead up to the servants living spaces, which had become larger and lighter, and moved down from the attic. Acorns are a reoccurring symbol throughout both Pond Mead and the Arts and Crafts movement. The oak tree has deep seated roots in the history and folklore of England and was used widely for the construction of houses and furniture. The acorn has been used to symbolise many things, including fertility, growth, good luck, good health, and perhaps most pertinently how perseverance pays off over time. The name Pond Mead appears to have stemmed from the original name of the plot which the tithe apportionment records as ‘Brick Mead’ (perhaps an indication of a nearby brick-works). The word mead is an archaic form of the word meadow. The name Pond Mead first appears on the 1919 OS map, possibly adopted at the same time as the Arts and Crafts styling. Its likely the name Pond Mead was chosen due to the presence of a pond opposite the plot and the olde Worlde association of the word mead. Structurally, most Arts and Crafts houses were constructed to feel as they had evolved in an organic manor over a period of time, but in actual fact were a result of meticulous and conscious design choices. Decisions were made by architects to display a general displeasure towards mass-production and celebrate the craftsmanship of local artisans. It seems, then, with its sprawling floor plan and multiple ridge-lines, that Pond Mead epitomizes the ethos of the movement and represents the kind of building many architects would have spent time and energy purposely constructing. The floor plan, however, was not the result of careful planning and was in fact born from a small timber-framed cottage which was extended and renovated over a period of a hundred years or so, to establish a building plan that would have been revered by many an Arts and Crafts reformer. <1>