The house appears large, but is in reality not of such great area in floor plan. The cross-bar of the H is but 18 ft. in depth 
“Luckley,” A Modern English Country Home 
THE COUNTRY SEAT OF MR. AND MRS. E. D. MANSFIELD AT WOKINGHAM, BERKSHIRE—ERNEST 
NEWTON, ARCHITECT—AN EXAMPLE OF THE BEST RECENT ENGLISH DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE 
BY P. H. Ditchfield 
O NE of the best of the lesser country houses which have been 
built in England in recent years is a house at Wokingham, 
Berkshire. Wokingham is an old town situated in the Forest of 
Windsor, wherein the kings from Norman times have loved to 
hunt the tall stags. It is an old-world town. Until a few years 
ago it remained in a sleepy, 
dead-alive state ; but now it has 
roused itself and a large num¬ 
ber of houses have sprung up 
like mushrooms, seme of them 
strange freaks of architectural 
enormity, terrible examples of 
what not to build; but this 
one is sc charming in every¬ 
way that it merits special at¬ 
tention. It occupies the site 
of an old house which was 
pulled down some years ago. 
Lofty elms, birch and wood¬ 
land surround it, and it has a 
stream running through the 
grounds, of which advantage 
has been taken in laying out 
the garden. 
Mr. Newton’s conception of 
the style of Luckley is prob¬ 
ably based upon that of Inigo 
Jones. In plan it is an H 
house, upon which so many of 
the beautiful examples of 
Tudor in England were based. It is, however, no slavish imitation 
of ancient models, but the ideas are developed and adapted to 
modern needs. The old house based upon this plan had the hall 
in the centre and two wings, one occupied by the kitchen, buttery 
and servants' quarters, and the other by the solar, withdrawing- 
room and the apartments of 
the family. In this modern 
adaptation we find in one wing 
the sitting-room and in the 
other the dining-room, kitchen 
and domestic offices. The 
central connecting link be¬ 
tween the two wings is occu¬ 
pied by the reception hall, 
staircase and a corridor lead¬ 
ing from the drawing-room to 
the dining-room. 
The material of the house is 
brick, those used for facing 
being “clamp” bricks from 
Chichester. These are of var¬ 
ious colors—deep ruby red, 
russet brown, grey and almost 
plum color. The angles of the 
walls and the margins round 
the windows are made with 
deep red kiln bricks. Rich 
red hand-made Kentish tiles 
cover the roof. The whole 
effect of color is quiet and 
The walls are of vari-colored “clamp” brick from Chichester, with 
deep red bricks at the corners, around openings and in the belt 
course 
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