1899
GORDONDENE.
15 Princes Way,
Wimbledon, Merton, London.
Originally Gordon Dene. Gordon was the maiden surname of the client's wife.
For Lieut.-Colonel Sir Cecil Edwin Fitch (1870-1940), barrister-at-law.
The house was afterwards massively extended by another architect.
The house was damaged during the World War II by a V2 rocket, but survived.
Mrs Finch continued to live in it until her death in 1959.
The
London County Council demolished the house, when it wanted to build social
housing on the site.
Contemporary photograph of
the south side,
published
in David Gebhard, Charles F. A. Voysey Architect, pl.88, p.146.
Photo on the top (RIBA
Photographs
Collection):
Part of the entrance elevation, including the later
extension, seen on the right, not designed by Voysey.
Published in King, P.G., 'Gordondene:
a house lost to time', The Orchard (no.11, 2022), p.36.
Photo at the bottom (RIBA Photographs
Collection):
Part of the garden elevation of the
completed house, the later extension seen to the left of the photo.
Published in King, P.G., 'Gordondene:
a house lost to time', The Orchard (no.11, 2022), p.36.
South elevation
RIBA Drawings Collection
North elevation, as designed (entrance front), but not as built.
RIBA Drawings Collection
Ground plan
RIBA Drawings Collection
Ground plan
RIBA Drawings Collection
Bedroom plan
RIBA Drawings Collection
Ground plan
RIBA Drawings Collection
Ground plan
RIBA Drawings Collection
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 >
RIBApix: Gordondene
plans an elevations
Link > RIBApix: all Voysey Images
Link > www.voyseysociety.org
The entry in Pevsner's Surrey (with Ian Nairn and Bridget Cherry, 1971) reads:
GORDON DENE. No.15 Prince's Way (Wimbledon), 1899 by Voysey, with a large double-gabled r. addition. Typical of Voysey’s free neo-Tudor, with its roughcast and stone window surrounds. The interior is much altered.
Description in
the Catalogue of the Drawings Collection
of the Royal Institute of British Architects,
C.F.A. Voysey, by
Joanna Symonds, D. C. Heath, Farnborough 1976:
"The site slopes down from approximately east to
west. [In the initial design for the
house ²] it is more or less
rectangular, with the longer sides facing north (the entrance front) and
south (the garden front). At the south west corner the stable building,
which runs east-west, is separated from the house only by covered passage.
The house is of two storeys, with a basement at the west end, and is covered
by a hipped roof. The south elevation is varied by a projecting bay window
at the east end, balanced by an oriel window at the west end and by a giant,
slightly off-centre chimneystack. The walls are roughcast, the windows have
stone dressings and the roofs are covered with red tiles."
Reference:
King, P.G., 'Gordondene: a house lost to time', The Orchard (no.11, 2022), pp.31-37.
Brandon-Jones, J., 'An architect's letters to his client : some letters written by the late C.F.A. Voysey to the late Sir Cecil Fitch, between August 1899 and May 1901', The Architect and building news, (June 3rd, 1949), pp.494-498. Full text available
Architect & Building News, CXCV, 1949, pp. 494-8 (Correspondence between Voysey and Fitch).
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