Marshcourt

File:Marshcourt Plans of House Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page128.jpg

Lutyens built Marshcourt for Herbert "Johnnie" Johnson, a trader/stockjobber on the London Stock Exchange, where he had accumulated a fortune of half a million pounds. He bought a hillside site overlooking the River TestBrown (1996), p. 119. (on a ridge above a much older manor house in the valley bottom, Marsh Court Manor), and approached Lutyens after seeing his work portrayed in Country Life. They became lifelong friends.Brown (1982), p. 72.

The house was built on the hillside, out of locally quarried chalk cut as ashlar,Ridley (2002), pp. 145–6. known as clunch. Lutyens interspersed pieces of black flint and red tiles in the masonry.Amery (1981), pp. 106–7. The exterior design of the house is Tudor, with mullioned and transomed windows,Lloyd and Pevsner (1973), pp. 312–3. and twisted brick chimneys. "Elizabethan bricks" were supplied by the Daneshill Brick and Tile Company, an enterprise set up by another Lutyens client, Walter Hoare.Brown (1996), pp. 136–7.

The north, entrance front on the higher ground is two-storey, in an E-plan with the facades displaying predominantly horizontal lines. The south, garden front is taller, less symmetrical, and with emphatic vertical lines. The west end of the south front is dominated by chimney stacks. At the east end of the south front, a wing projects forward, enclosing a service courtyard.

File:Marshcourt Hall Screen Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page134.jpg hall (Weaver, 1913)]]

Internally, a long corridor runs east to west, with the main rooms all south-facing. The interior design is neoclassical.Wilhide (2012), p. 32. The oak-panelled hall features two friezes carved in chalk, with classical festoons. The dining room is panelled in walnut veneer. Ceilings have highly decorative plasterwork.Wilhide (2012), pp. 149–52. There are chalk fireplaces and even a chalk billiard table. Lutyens also designed the light fittings.Gradidge (1981), pp. 112–3.

In the First World War, Marshcourt became a 60-bed military hospital, run by Johnson's wife,{{National Heritage List for England |num=1093099 |desc=Stockbridge War Memorial |accessdate=5 September 2016 |fewer-links=x }} a local widow who had been known as Violet Meeking before their marriage in 1912, and had been born Violet Fletcher.Skelton (2008), p. 80. She also ran a military hospital in Stockbridge. In 1919, Herbert Johnson instigated the construction of the Grade II listed Stockbridge War Memorial, designed by Lutyens and unveiled in 1921 by Violet Johnson, and King's Somborne War Memorial, also designed by Lutyens, unveiled in 1921 and Grade II listed.{{National Heritage List for England |num=1093814 |desc=King's Somborne War Memorial |accessdate=5 September 2016 |fewer-links=x }} Violet Charlotte Johnson was awarded an MBE, for her services in the care of wounded soldiers, but died in 1921. Lutyens designed her Grade II listed memorial in Winton Hill cemetery, Stockbridge.{{National Heritage List for England |num=1392554 |desc=Memorial to Violet Charlotte Johnson MBE in Stockbridge cemetery |accessdate=5 September 2016 |fewer-links=x }}

In 1924–6,Richardson (1981), p. 193. Lutyens added a ballroom to the southeast corner of the house, in the same architectural style. Johnson later installed a full-size organ there.Brown (1996), p. 240.

In 1932, after falling on hard times Johnson sold Marshcourt for £60,000, having paid £150,000 originally.Ridley (2002), p. 383. It later became a preparatory school,Brown (1982), p. 165. known as Marsh Court School.

In 1993 Marshcourt was bought by the Belgian car importer Joska Bourgeois for £630,000. Bourgeois allowed the British businessman and politician Geoffrey Robinson to appear as the owner of the house, he would eventually inherit it after Bourgeois' death, some eight months later.{{sfn|Bower|2001|p=101}} Robinson sold Marshcourt in 1999 to its present owners.[http://www.countrylife.co.uk/news/marshcourt-hampshire-40381 Country Life, May 3, 2007]

File:Marshcourt the Sunk Pool Garden Lutyens Houses and Gardens 1913 Page124.jpg

Gardens with terraces, pools and pergolas surround the house, connected by paths paved in stone inset with herringbone pattern brickwork panels. Main gardens include the Piazza, a lawned area immediately to the south of the house, with a central sundial, and a sunken pool garden adjacent to the Piazza to its west. There are extensive views from a west-facing loggia over the Piazza and the sunken garden towards the Test valley,Brown (1982), pp. 72–7. an arrangement similar to an earlier Lutyens work, Orchards in Surrey, and other Lutyens houses.Brown (1982), pp. 105–8.

The sunken garden has a rectangular pool containing a dolphin fountain and surrounded by concentric stone steps and flowerbeds. It is Grade II* listed.{{NHLE |num=1093807 |desc=Sunken garden on south of west wing of Marsh Court|accessdate=9 November 2015 |fewer-links=x}} Sculptures of seahorses and tortoises around the pool were created by Julia Chance, the owner of Orchards.Tankard (2004), pp. 121–2.

A dry moat running around the forecourt to the north of the house is crossed by a bridge. These were both designed by Lutyens, and are Grade II listed.{{NHLE |num=1093804 |desc=Moat in front of forecourt of Marsh Court to the north|accessdate=9 November 2015 |fewer-links=x}}

An episode of the 2011 BBC series The Country House Revealed was dedicated to Marshcourt.[http://countryhouses.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/the-country-house-revealed-%E2%80%93-marsh-court-hampshire/] The Country House Revealed – Marsh Court, Hampshire

Marsh Court was used as the Churston residence of Sir Carmichael Clarke in "Agatha Christie's Poirot'' in the episode The A.B.C. Murders

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite book |title=Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944) |chapter=Great Houses |last=Amery |first=Colin |year=1981 |publisher=Arts Council of Great Britain |location=London |isbn=0-7287-0304-1 }}
• {{cite book|last=Bower|first=Tom|year=2001|title=The Paymaster: Geoffrey Robinson, Maxwell and New Labour|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r7x5AAAAIAAJ|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-0-7432-0689-1}}
• {{cite book |title=Gardens of a Golden Afternoon. The Story of a Partnership: Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll |last=Brown |first=Jane |year=1982 |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London |isbn=0-7139-1440-8}}
• {{cite book |title=Lutyens and the Edwardians |last=Brown |first=Jane |year=1996 |publisher=Viking |location=London |isbn=0-670-85871-4}}
• {{cite book |last=Gradidge |first=Roderick |title=Edwin Lutyens: Architect Laureate |year=1981 |publisher=George Allen and Unwin |location=London |isbn=0-04-720023-5 }}
• {{cite book |title=The Buildings of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight |last1=Lloyd |first1=David |last2=Pevsner |first2=Nikolaus |year=1973 |publisher=Penguin |location=Harmondsworth}}
• {{cite book |title=Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944) |chapter=List of Works by Sir Edwin Lutyens |last=Richardson |first=Margaret |year=1981 |publisher=Arts Council of Great Britain |location=London |isbn=0-7287-0304-1 }}
• {{cite book |title=The Architect and his Wife: A Life of Edwin Lutyens |last=Ridley |first=Jane |year=2002 |publisher=Chatto & Windus |location=London |isbn=0-7011-7201-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/architecthiswife0000ridl }}
• {{cite book|last1=Skelton|first1=Tim|last2=Gliddon|first2=Gerald|title=Lutyens and the Great War|year=2008|publisher=Frances Lincoln Publishers|location=London|isbn=978-0-7112-2878-8}}
• {{cite book |title=Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement: Reality and Imagination |last=Tankard |first=Judith B. |year=2004 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |location=New York |isbn=0-8109-4965-2 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Weaver |first1=Lawrence| title = Houses and Gardens by E.L. Lutyens |date=1913 |publisher=Country Life |place=London | pages = 75–93 | url=https://archive.org/details/houses-and-gardens-by-lutyens-1913-images}}
• {{cite book |last=Wilhide |first=Elizabeth |title=Sir Edwin Lutyens: Designing in the English Tradition |year=2012 |publisher=National Trust Books |location=London |isbn=9781907892271 }}

{{commons category-inline|Marshcourt, Stockbridge, Hampshire|Marshcourt}}

Category:Arts and Crafts architecture in England

Category:Grade I listed buildings in Hampshire

Category:Grade I listed houses

Category:Country houses in Hampshire

Category:Houses completed in 1905

Category:Works of Edwin Lutyens in England

Category:Arts and Crafts gardens

Category:Grade II* listed parks and gardens in Hampshire

Category:Gardens by Gertrude Jekyll

Category:1905 establishments in England