page_title: C. F. A. Voysey
section_title: Architectural work
hierarchical_section_title: C. F. A. Voysey / Architectural work
caption_attribution_description: English: From The Studio, International Art Magazine. 1897
context_page_description: Charles Francis Annesley Voysey was an English architect and furniture and textile designer. Voysey's early work was as a designer of wallpapers, fabrics and furnishings in a simple Arts and Crafts style, but he is renowned as the architect of several country houses.
  He was one of the first people to understand and appreciate the significance of industrial design. He has been considered one of the pioneers of Modern Architecture, a notion which he rejected. His English domestic architecture draws heavily on vernacular rather than academic tradition, influenced by the ideas of Herbert Tudor Buckland and Augustus Pugin.
  The Sanderson wallpaper factory in Chiswick, which he designed, is named Voysey House in his memory.
context_section_description: Voysey's first design was for a house at Loughton for Octavius Dixie Deacon. A house was erected on the site, but whether it bore any relation to Voysey's design is not known. By 1894 Voysey had moved his practice to Melina Place, St John's Wood, London, next door to the influential Arts and Crafts architect Edward Schroeder Prior, resulting in the development of a long term friendship and exchange of ideas between the two men.
  Voysey's architectural practice began slowly, with small alterations and surveys; a number of unexecuted designs from these early years were published and reveal the influence of both Seddon and Devey. In 1888 he obtained his first architectural commission, for The Cottage (addition by Voysey, 1900) at Bishop's Itchington, Warwicks. The Cottage was built of thin, buttressed brickwork, roughcast and painted cream.
  This form of construction was chosen by Voysey because it was cheap, but in his hands it became an aesthetic end in itself, as he skilfully juxtaposed the solid and void, light and shadow, of the clean-cut forms. Other 19th-century architects, including Devey, had built country cottages in a simple vernacular style with whitened roughcast for estate workers, parsons and schoolmasters. For 1888, The Cottage was unusual not only for being entirely roughcast but also for its simplicity and informality, which were revolutionary in a gentleman's house.
  Walnut Tree Farm (1890) at Castlemorton, near Malvern, Worcestershire, and a house at Bedford Park (1891), Chiswick, west London, have certain novel features that became characteristic of Voysey's designs. Walnut Tree Farm shows for the first time the lively colouring that was to become typical of his houses: whitened roughcast, bright green exterior woodwork, oversize, bright green water-butts, bright green tubs of bay trees and bright red curtains at the windows. At Bedford Park the innovation consisted in very simplified classical or Queen Anne details, a slate roof and practical metal frames and stone surrounds of the windows.
  In 1893 Voysey obtained his first commission for a relatively expensive house, Perrycroft, at Colwall, near Malvern. From then until 1910 Voysey received a steady stream of architectural commissions; most were simple, white country or suburban houses with low, spreading lines, for which he became famous. He introduced some mannered, even eccentric, classical detailing into two fairly expensive houses in Surrey, designed in 1897: New Place, near Haslemere, and Norney, near Shackleford. But there was a return to simplicity at Broad Leys and Moorcrag, the lakeside houses near Windermere that he designed in 1898.
  Between 1900 and 1910 Voysey obtained a series of commissions that gave him the opportunity to design complete houses, including every detail of the interiors, not only fixtures, but also movable furniture, carpets, curtains and wall coverings. The Orchard, Chorleywood, Herts, designed for himself and his wife in 1899, was the first such house. In 1901 came The Pastures at North Luffenham, Rutland; in 1905 Holly Mount, near Beaconsfield, Bucks, and The Homestead at Frinton-on-Sea, Essex.
  An interior design carried out in London was Garden Corner (1906) on the Chelsea Embankment. In the typical Voysey interior the low ceilings and deep friezes were white; the woodwork was unpolished oak, if possible, or cheaper deal painted white. Colours in furnishings, tiled fireplaces and wall and floor coverings were soft and light, for example delicate greens and heathery purples, with a few bright accents of red and turquoise. There was no clutter in a Voysey interior: furniture was sparse and the use of pattern in wallpapers, carpets and metalwork was sparing.
  From c. 1910 Voysey’s architectural practice declined, largely because he was out of sympathy with the new fashion for classical forms. He reacted against this by introducing details of Gothic origin into his work. In 1909 he used a pointed arch in the porch of Brooke End at Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, and in the same year he built a miniature courtyard house in Tud
caption: Houses in Hans Road, Chelsea
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