Left: Tower House, 29 (originally 9) Melbury Road, London. Architect: William Burges. 1877. Right: From another angle. Tower House, the architect's own home, derives its inspiration from Castell Coch (Red Castle) near Cardiff, which Burges designed for the 3rd Marquess of Bute. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Stained-glass windows. Right: Detail of tower.
Helpfully, Joseph Mordaunt Crook points out that this was no mansion: that it looks so imposing, and much larger than its actual size (a little over 50 feet square) says a great deal for Burges's abilities as an architect.
The materials are plain: London gauge red bricks, with Bath stone dressings and Cumberland green slates. Its exterior — in the language of the day —is simple and massive, making bold use of geometrical forms, triangle, cube and cone. The entrance front ... is striking only in its circular staircase turret, a focus and hinge for the axis of Melbury Rd.... a theme he had played with already at Cardiff, and in his Law Courts design. Conical angle towers are by no means peculiar to him: examples are fairly frequent in secular and domestic designs of the later 1870s. But at Tower House this feature is used with deceptive ease. Its sturdy simplicity sets the keynote for the whole composition. There are few mouldings and fewer sculptures: only the carved capitals of the double porch (which recalls a fortalice by ‘Greek’ Thomson), and the lintels over the library windows (which remind us of his enthusiasm for the winged beasts of Nineveh). The stern grid of mullion and transom is characteristically Burgesian. From the roof fly two weather vanes, the mermaid and the menaced heart: symbols which Burges adopted as his own. Two lead gargoyles echo those at Cardiff. And in the garden gable is set a convex mirror, designed to catch and reflect the rays of the setting sun. [308]
Throughout, says Crook, "The plan is lucid and logical" (308). There is little in this plainness to prepare us for the treasure trove of visionary High Victorian workmanship within, now dispersed but at least preserved in collections like that of the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, Bedford, for posterity to admire.
Links to Related Material
- Melbury Road, Leighton House, and the Holland Park Artists' Houses
- The Red Bed, with Henry Holiday's painted headboard
- The Crocker Dressing Table
- The Narcissus Wash Stand
Photographs 2006 and text 2006 and 2024 by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Crook, J. Mordaunt. William Burges and the High Victorian Dream. Revised ed. London: Francis Lincoln, 2013..
Last modified 24 May 2015
Last modified 3 April 2024