Where Is This? No.208

Published on: 6 May, 2016
Updated on: 19 Jan, 2019

By David Rose

Tricky one last week regarding the house featured as the mystery vintage picture – but it appears that it has been solved.

Russell Morris suggested it is Chantry Dene, 18 Fort Road. His reply included some details about the house.

And my good friend historian Frank Phillipson, who is an ace detective when it comes to these kind of puzzles, emailed details that confirm Russell’s suggestion. While Russell has added an extra reply saying he’s had stroll round there and confirms the same.

Areail view courtesy of website BING showing Chantry Dene, 18 Fort Road, Guildford. Click to enlarge in a new window.

Frank wrote: “BING Birds Eye View Aerial Photos (which gives you oblique aerial views) for the Warwick’s Bench area (thought it seemed familiar there) features a house called Chantry Dene, 18 Fort Road the details of which I attach.”

Map from 1935 showing the house.

Frank also attached a map from 1935 that shows the property.

Via the internet he also found the following details about this rather interesting property.

Grade: II  Date first listed: December 19, 2002.

House. Designed in 1907 and erected in 1908, Architects Clemence and Moon, in Arts and Crafts style.

The client was a local timber merchant Arthur I Moon. Built mainly of purple brick in stretcher bond with red brick dressings and some pebbledash, especially to the gables.

Wooden Georgian style cornice. Tiled roof with tall brick chimneystacks. Butterfly plan aligned north to south, the wider part to the south, with a north eastern spur containing the service wing. Two storeys attics and basement; three or four windows to the main part of the house, with irregular fenestration to the front but regular to the rear, mainly mullioned or mullioned and transomed casements with leaded lights.

Exterior: North or entrance front has a central curved belvedere to the roof with three leaded lights surmounted by an octagonal wooden cupola with copper dome and metal weathervane. The central first floor window has a curved leaded light and the ground floor has a semi-circular domed porch supported on two Tuscan columns and two piers. Behind is a good quality oak panelled half-glazed door with original ironmongery.

On either side are partly inward facing pebbledashed gables with Venetian windows and casement windows below, two to left and one to right, right hand one a late C20 window within original surround. To the left is the mainly one storey service wing.

West elevation has a two storey canted bay window with pebbledash between the floors. South or garden front has a recessed central bay with dormer with curved gable. Below is a five-light square bay with mullions and transomes and leaded lights. The ground floor has four columns to the loggia with balustrading above. Loggia glazed-in to make a sun lounge in late C20. The end bays have outwardly facing pebbledashed gables with oval windows to the attics and a triple dormer to the gable returns.

Below are two storey five-light canted bays with mullioned and transomed windows and leaded lights to the upper parts only. To the right, set back is a further bay with curved 4-light window to the first floor and four-light mullioned and transomed casement to the ground floor. To the extreme right is a one storey service wing with three windows.

Interior: Oak staircase with gallery with turned balusters and newel posts with carvings of mitlitary arms and heraldic devices. The two principal south facing reception rooms and the former study, now kitchen, contain round-headed apse-like cupboards.

There are deep skirting boards and simple coved ceilings. A second floor bedroom retains an original fireplace. A larder with slate shelves is also reported in an earlier Sales Particulars.

History: In 1910 Roger Eliot Fry, art critic and member of the Bloomsbury Group, was a tenant while building his own house, Durbins, in Chantry View Road. The architect, Thomas Riley Clemence (1863-1947) practised mainly in the Guildford area with various partners and his commissions included many large houses and public houses for Friary Holroyd & Healy’s breweries. His partner at the time Moon is considered to be a Mr H Moon who constructed the almshouses in Hambledon in 1907.

In her reply Chris Townsend adds some details about James H. Jeans, whose son, Christopher is editing an English translation of a biography of his father. He owns the picture and had contacted the Guildford Institute to see if anyone could identify the house.

Armed with all this information I am sure the Guildford Institute will pass on these details. Thanks to all who replied, a number getting very close to the location in the Warwick’s bench area.

The house that A Smith suggested at St Catherine’s, was called the Beacon. I have pictures of that – perhaps I will slip one of those in some time.

And the quirky photo featuring a suit of armour can be found outside the Ashuka tandoori restaurant, on the Epsom Road at Merrow. A number of readers correctly identified it.

Click here to see last week’s post and all the replies at the foot of it.

This appears to show the Olympic Torch relay for the 1948 Olympic Games held in the UK. Is it Guildford or another town? Click to enlarge in a new window.

On to this week’s and a photo that I have had in my possession for a number of years. It came to me with a number of other tiny photos in one of those old yellow photo wallets once supplied by photographic developer firms.

Most of the images feature Guildford’s celebrations of George V’s silver Jubilee in 1935, plus one of Chertsey Road in Woking in about the late 1940s.

This one is interesting as there are three runners at the foot of the photo in white shirts and shorts. Two of them have an ‘X’ on their shirts.

I recognise these as runners in the Olympic Torch relay for the 1948 London Olympics. It passed through Guildford and I have written about this previously when editing the From the Archives page in the Surrey Advertiser with some photos courtesy of Michael Williams, who saw the torch arrive at Guildford and his grandfather was the mayor at the time.

The runner who brought the torch into Guildford from Merrow was Austin Playfoot, who I met and interviewed. He also showed me pictures he owns – again with two runners wearing the ‘X’ on their shirts.

I think I am correct in saying that in 1948 the Olympic Torch arrived at Dover on its journey to Wembley Stadium for the games. It passed through Canterbury, Charing, Maidstone, Westerham, Redhill, Dorking, Guildford, Bagshot, Ascot, Windsor, Slough and Uxbridge to Wembley Stadium.

There was a second relay that went from Wembley Stadium to Torre Abbey in Torquay, passing through Uxbridge, Slough, Maidenhead, Reading, Basingstoke, Andover, Salisbury, Sherborne, Yeovil, Chard, Exeter and Newton Aboot.

I list all these and I am not at sure this picture is Guildford. Can anyone help with its identification?

Frank Ede with the Olympic torch at Guildford. Click to enlarge in a new window.

Here is a picture of Frank Ede and his escort runners.

And on to this week’s quirky pictures. yes, three pictures as it’s worth featuring all these images of the same property.

Where is Albert Cottage? Note: the sign once read ‘Albert Cottages’.

Any ideas?

Dragon editor Martin Giles snapped these. As a clue, the house ain’t too far from our regular correspondents and speedboat dreamers Bill and Doug Staniforth’s cycle shop in Stoke Road.

This sign is also in front of the same cottage.

If you know where this week’s mysteries are, please leave a reply in the box below – and extra details if you have them.

They will be published along with two more mystery images at about the same time next week. Good luck.

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