4S 
House 
& Garden 
THE SMALL FORMAL HOUSE 
Bramble Haw at Carshalton in Surrey Illustrates a Formal Design by The 
Brothers Adam That is Adequate for Complete Living 
HAROLD DONALDSON EBERLEIN 
addition was ever 
made and it is best to 
think of the house 
and to visualize it in 
its original and wholly 
symmetrical form. 
Apart from the sat¬ 
isfying and distin¬ 
guishing lines of the 
mass, with its nice 
balance of solids and 
voids, each detail of 
Bramble Haw will 
bear and also repay 
the closest scrutiny. 
The molding at the 
top of the base course 
and the moldings of 
the frieze and cornice, 
while quite sufficient 
to impress the eye and 
carry the conviction of 
just proportion, are 
instinct with refine¬ 
ment and combine 
delicacy with strength 
in an exceptionally 
agreeable manner. 
The sun-ray roundels, 
set at intervals in the 
fluted frieze, are of 
gray terra cotta match¬ 
ing the color of the 
stone. 
The only other fea¬ 
ture to break the severe simplicity of the ex¬ 
terior is the portico at the house door where 
chaste Classic enrichment is concentrated. 
What appears to be a fan-light above the door 
in reality contains no glass at all, but is a semi¬ 
circular expanse of plaster painted white as a 
NOTION 
seems 
to be more or 
less prevalent that for¬ 
mality in domestic 
architecture is some¬ 
how incompatible with 
smallness. That it is 
not true may readily be 
seen from Bramble 
Haw, at Carshalton in 
Surrey. 
Bramble Haw was 
designed by the Broth¬ 
ers Adam and built in 
1792, the year of Rob¬ 
ert Adam’s death. The 
gray, close - grained 
stone used for the walls 
came from the old Lon¬ 
don Bridge and was 
fetched down to Car¬ 
shalton to be fresh 
dressed and utilized in 
the fabric of this thor¬ 
oughly characteristic 
bit of late 18th Cen¬ 
tury urbanity in archi¬ 
tecture. The house as 
originally planned was 
an almost perfect cube. 
It has, however, suf¬ 
fered one defacement, 
added twenty-five years 
ago, in the shape of 
a lateral slice of struc¬ 
ture tacked on to the ground floor at the 
north side. Seen from the east, north, and 
northwest, this excrescence sadly mars the 
symmetry of the composition and, to heap in¬ 
sult upon injury, it serves no particularly valu¬ 
able purpose. One cannot but regret that the 
The woodwork of the hall 
shows a pleasing disposi¬ 
tion of the panels and ex¬ 
cellent details in moldings 
that warrant study 
The pillars, cornice and 
over-door panel are as 
the original architects left 
them, the other panels 
being of later design 
It is a well-established old 
English usage to set the fire¬ 
place in the corner. The sur¬ 
round is of veined marble and 
the over-mantel a wood panel 
in scale with the panels of 
the walls 
Although the glazed doors to 
the library bookshelf are mod¬ 
ern, the cupboards beneath 
and chair rail are in the origi¬ 
nal condition, and worth not¬ 
ing for their simplicity and 
refinement 
