Sir Edwin Lutyens
Sir Edwin Lutyens was an internationally-renowned architect who left his stamp on Preston by
designing more than a dozen buildings in the vicinity.
This provides a uniform and pleasing character to the district.
Here is the story of his life and his involvement with a small Hertfordshire village.
‘The greatest artist in building whom Britain has produced’ – thus, Sir Edwin Lutyens has been
lauded. Between 1908 and 1920, he designed several properties around Preston ranging from estate
workers’ cottages to Temple Dinsley’s extensive additions and alterations.
Edwin Landseer Lutyens was born on 29 March 1869 at Onslow Square, London. He was one of
fourteen children and was known among his friends simply as ‘Ned’.
His daughter, Mary, asserts that her family descended from a Dutchman called Lutkens who came to
England and became a naturalised British subject, changing his name in the process.
Edwin’s father, Charles, held a commission in the 20th Regiment of Foot and was a talented water
colourist. In 1852, he married an Irish girl, Mary Gallway, in Montreal, Canada. Five years later,
Charles retired from the army with the rank of Captain to paint professionally. He studied with Sir
Edwin Landseer who was to be Ned’s godfather and the inspiration for his name. Charles exhibited at
the Royal Academy every year and, with Edwin Landseer, designed the lions of Trafalgar Square
Lutyens’ formative years
As a child, Edwin contracted rheumatic fever which influenced his development: ‘Any talent....was
due to a long illness which afforded me time to think’ and which taught him to ‘use his eyes instead of
his feet’. He had a talent for drawing – ‘It’s easy, I just think and then I draw a line around my think’.
As a teenager, he roamed the West Surrey countryside absorbing the styles of old buildings and the
methods of construction of new homes – how drains were dug; the laying of foundations; how roofs
were tiled and the erecting of chimney stacks.
Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll
In 1885, Edwin was sent to South Kensington School for Art. Four years later he was introduced to
Gertude Jekyll, doyen of English garden designers, a meeting which was to result in several
architectural commissions. Lutyens affectionately referred to Jekyll (who was twenty-six years his
senior) as ‘Aunt Bumps – the Mother of All Bulbs’ or ‘Mab’. Together, they toured the countryside in
Jekyll’s pony cart observing farms and houses and discussing their structures.
When he was twenty years old, Lutyens opened his own office. It was the age of the grand country
house where guests were entertained from Saturday until Monday and he established a reputation for
designing picturesque houses for the nouveau riche and country cottages. His first commission was
to plan Jekyll’s own home, Munstead Wood in Godalming, Surrey (1896).
Jekyll introduced Lutyens to those for whom she designed gardens and he planned architectural
features for homes and gardens. The ultimate kudos for many wealthy families was a “Lutyens house
with a Jekyll garden” - an ‘Edwardian catch-phrase denoting excellence, something fabulous in both
scale and detail’. Perhaps their best-known collaboration is at Hestercombe in Somerset which is still
a revered shrine for admiring gardeners
When studying for a gardening qualification, I was astonished to read of a Lutyens/Jekyll project in
my father’s old village. Jane Brown in Gardens of a Golden Afternoon (sub-titled, The Story of a
Partnership: Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll) mentions ‘another good brick garden with elaborate
terraces’ at Temple Dinsley and includes a photograph of the garden house. She lists ‘the rose
garden with its elegant brickwork’ as one of only twenty-four ‘saveable’ and ‘hallowed’ examples of
the duo’s work.
This is how Lutyens (described as the ‘leading architect of country houses’ because of a ‘brilliant
sequence of houses built for rich and fastidious Edwardians’) became involved with Preston: he had
designed additions to Abbotswood at Stow-on-the-Wold, the home of country gentleman, Mark
Fenwick to whom he had been introduced by Jekyll. Fenwick in turn recommended Lutyens to his
cousin, H. G. Fenwick, ‘Bertie’, who had purchased Temple Dinsley. H.G.F. commissioned additions
to the Queen Ann mansion and built the estate cottages at Chequers Lane, Preston. He also had Hill
End, Langley built for his wife together with a cluster of nearby cottages. Minsden Farm, now known
as Ladygrove, Kiln Wood Cottage and 1 & 2 Hitchwood Cottages were also commissioned during this
period. Thus, in less than twelve years, a collection of buildings, whether mansions or cottages, was
created around Preston village giving a uniform and pleasing character to the district.
Lutyens and Preston
Lutyens’ work evolved, his reputation grew and his designs became more grandiose: for twenty years
he planned the lay-out of New Delhi, India where he also designed the Viceroy’s house – all in a neo-
classical style. Lutyens was knighted in 1918. Following The Great War, he devised the Cenotaph in
London and the Memorial of the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval. He was also commissioned to
design several commercial buildings in London and the British Embassy in Washington, USA.
After becoming president of the Royal Academy in 1938, Lutyens died on New Year’s Day, 1944 and
his ashes were interred at St Paul’s Cathedral – an apt choice as he referred to his ‘Wrennaisance’
style at the time he designed the additions to Temple Dinsley.
Later work
Lutyens had the self-trained ability to memorize a building’s colour, texture and materials. A new
commission would take shape in his mind’s eye. On site, he might make deft, pencil sketches,
sometimes on scraps of paper, which ‘poured out like water from a jug onto the paper’ and included a
note of proportions. If clients were present during the moments of creation, they watched with
fascination as their house took shape before their gaze. Back at Lutyen’s office, the drawings were
then passed to an assistant who produced a correctly-drawn scale plan.
Rather like the artist’s ‘golden rule of thirds’, Lutyens also developed, by trial and error, a simple but
subtle system of ratios between dimensions and angles of a building which gave a distinctive
character to much of his work. He decreed that all inclined planes should be at 54.45 degrees; that
the intersection of two roofs should be inclined at 45 degrees and that window panes should have a
‘diagonal of square’ ratio which also gave the proportions of the whole window. If the building design
failed to conform to his methods, then the building was adjusted rather than the proportions. His
motto was ‘Metiendo Vivendum’ – ‘By measure we must live’ and he said of his work that ‘everything
should have an air of inevitability’.
Lutyens’ methodology
Navigate from here using links below to articles featuring photographs and
comments re: Luytens’- designed houses at Preston
Temple Dinsley
The gardens of Temple Dinsley
The rose garden of Temple Dinsley
Crunnells Green
Hill End and nearby cottages
Chequers Cottages
Minsden farm (aka Ladygrove),
Kiln Wood
1 & 2 Hitchwood Cottages
