Listed Building: Althorp, Cotherstone Lodge (1257406)

Entrance lodge, now offices. 1879-80 from a prefabricated pack by W H Lascelles, builder, based on a design by Richard Norman Shaw. Concrete panels on timber frame, with tile roof on timber rafters and with concrete finials. Brick stack. The lower parts of the ground floor now pebbledashed. Timber windows renewed. Porch infilled with late C20 door. Interior with former kitchen (now lightly partitioned) and living room either side of central staircase leading to three former bedrooms in the eaves. HISTORY: Mass concrete construction was identified in Britain during the 1860s as a suitable means of building cheap cottages. W H Lascelles was an experimental builder and inventor who in 1875 patented a post and panel system of concrete construction which avoided the need for expensive shuttering. Though it was not widely adopted, it produced designs of more exceptional quality than were normal for concrete buildings at the time. In part this was due to the range of mouldings Lascelles could produce, in part to his association with Norman Shaw, one of the leading architects of the day. In 1878 the two collaborated, with Shaw's assistant Ernest Newton, in a book of designs, `Sketches for Cottages and other Buildings designed to be Constructed in the Patent Cement Slab System of W H Lascelles, Bunhill Row, Finsbury, London E.C. From sketches and notes by R. Norman Shaw, R.A. drawn by Maurice B. Adams', two examples of which were exhibited at the Paris Exhibition on the Champs de Mars in that year. Records at the Althorp Estate confirm that Earl Spencer ordered one `design No. 9' which was dispatched, packed, by rail in August 1879 and that the total construction time was from January 1879 until May 1880. The cost of Lascelles's prefabricated design `No. 9' was ?195. The special interest of Lascelles's system is that it was the first to rely entirely on prefabricated components, and that it had exceptional architectural quality for its date. This is the only example so far discovered which relates exactly to one of Shaw's published designs. Cotherstone was Earl Spencer's favourite racehorse of the period. He was buried nearby. SOURCES: Sketches for Cottages, etc. 1878 Andrew Saint, Richard Norman Shaw, 1976, pp.165-70 The Architect, 24 August 1878, p.105 Building News, 19 July 1878, pp.46-7 The Builder, 31 August 1878, pp.908-9 Concrete, April 1972, p.28

Record last edited

Aug 18 2023 3:56PM