We are delighted to be part of the team selected by Peking University to guide the development of architectural proposals by MICA for new student development within the grounds of Foxcombe Hall. The proposals are currently at pre-application stage.

History

1887-1893 The Rev Henry George Woods

In 1887, a picturesque brick cottage, was designed by H W Moore of Oxford for the President of Trinity College, the Rev Henry George Woods and his wife, Margaret, a writer and critic.

The OS Plan of 1899 shows the new house within a clearing in woods and accessed from two points on the track leading to the hamlet of Boars Hill. The house has substantial grounds including two man-made lakes. The original house and its projecting gable is extant on the north elevation. The 1899 plan and the plans published in The Builder 1902 indicate that the house had a range of rooms looking out to the south including a projecting range used as a Library. The south elevation had two bays at ground floor.

No early plans of the house survive, however, the current layout reflects that shown on the plan of 1902. At ground floor, accommodation would have included: a Morning Room, Dining Room and a Library. At first floor, generous bedroom accommodation and bathrooms. The plan also shows two ancillary buildings one immediately to the west of the house and the other to the north. Historic England’s list description describes the west building as a cottage and the building to the north as a stable block. It is not clear whether the house was built as Henry George Woods’ main home or summer residence, however, it was not in the Wood’s ownership for long as it was sold some six years later.

1893 Randal Mowbray, 8th Earl Berkeley

Purchased the house at Foxcombe, and in 1901, Berkeley converted the building known as the Old Dairy into a small laboratory where he began his work on Osmotic Pressures. The building consists of one and a half storeys with a large subterranean basement which would have been an unusual plan form for a Dairy if in fact it ever was one. Leaving that aside the map evidence suggests that it could have only been in use as a dairy for a short period as it is no building on that part of the site is shown on the OS plan of 1899.

In 1902, designs for a new extension by Ernest George and Alfred Yeates were prepared and illustrated in The Builder. The designs were not fully executed and show a wing to the south with a Morning Room that was not built. The full extent of George and Yeates’s masterplan is seen in the valuation office plans of 1913 which show Moore’s 1887 house transformed into a capacious country house with pretensions to be a castle approached through a tree lined avenue to the south east leading to the formal entrance porte cochere. A new servants quarter to the west was added and a new lodge built as stables with servant quarters above. Two further lodges were constructed, one at the south-east entrance and the other at the north. The lodges are some of the first buildings with active frontages onto Berkeley Road. Several ancillary buildings possibly stables or agricultural buildings within the grounds have been added over time. The south front of the house was given a formal terrace with an ornamental Italian inspired sunken garden falling away rapidly to the south where the garden meanders into woodland. Paths and trails wind their way around the garden. Some of the additions made in this period are discernible by common motifs on the rainwater goods for instance where they are adorned with either the Berkeley Crest, or the letter B. Inside the door surrounds are also similarly embellished.

The new house was designed to impress guests and visitors, and to convey the wealth, lineage and social status of the Berkeley Family. Approached from the east, the porte cochere led into a first floor gallery that overlooks the west end of a Grand Hall. The hall’s design was based on a traditional design inspired by the real Berkeley Castle, with a timber trussed roof, wainscoting, clerestory glasses and a central stone fireplace with the Berkeley Crest above. To the far west there was a Billiard Room on two levels leading to Mowbray’s master bedroom suite, accessed either from the gallery or from a stone stair turret hidden from view. George and Yeates planned very few changes to Moore’s existing house, choosing to retain the principal rooms looking south as a series of private rooms. The first floor was also left relatively unchanged with Lady Berkeley’s Bedroom and Dressing Room looking out toward the gardens. A beam across her bedroom is inscribed in Latin:“Live not your life unto Death” (Revelation 12:11)

Theological College, Ripon Hall, 1934-1976

Initially the conversion to Ripon Hall required very little alteration. The Theological College continued to use the house for residential accommodation and many of the spaces such as the Dining Hall retained their original function. The Billiard Room was used as a Chapel and the Old Dairy converted to a hostel. The alterations are described in a bill of quantities dated 1932 and prepared by Architect N.W. Harrison FRIBA of 5 Turl Street, Oxford.

According to Pevsner, following a fire in 1935, most of the original house was remodelled encased in Bladon Rubble limestone by Sir Albert Richardson with Collyweston stone tiled roofs. The fire provided the opportunity to provide nine additional bedrooms within the attic storey for residential students and staff. The changes resulted in the remodelling of the roof in a mansard arrangement, and the simplification of the south elevation. Whilst Pevsner describes the work as bland, the roof sits comfortably with the rest of the south elevation and the overall effect is not.

In 1964, the opening of a new extension to Ripon Hall was celebrated. Constructed by contractors FR Hipperson and designed by architects Myles and Deirdre Dove, the extension won the prestigious (national) Civic Trust Award for environmental design. The extension provided valuable additional teaching space, a Library, Lecture Room, two staff flatlets and seven bed sitting rooms for students. The ground floor has a facing of grey brick and above that are slates of a darker grey designed to blend in with the original tower. At the same time there was a service of rededication of the Chapel, which was extended by the addition of an apse and refurnished. The work on the Chapel was completed as a memorial to Dr H D A Major, Principal from 1919 to 1948. Many former students contributed and one of the governors contributed to having the floor levelled. ‘The Chapel has been completely turned around, and the Chancel step would have been completely in the wrong position’. (This implies that the altar would have originally faced west). By 1970 two small extensions had been erected to the north of the Laboratory. It is not clear when the extensions were constructed but plans suggest that the extensions were made to provide access into the roof space coeval with the addition of the dormers on north and south elevations.

Open University, 1976-2017

The Open University purchased Ripon Hall in 1976. In 1995 they engaged Peter Haddon and Partners to extend the 1964 extension by Myles and Deirdre Dove. Their original plan was for alterations and extension to the ground floor single storey wing and a two-storey extension to the west but this was refused, so in 1996, a revised application with a single storey extension to the west was approved. They carried out several minor alterations to the Hall. The Open University were rarely open to the public and as a result many of the alterations made were utilitarian alterations to some of the good early interiors.

james mackintosh architects limited

studio@jmackintosh.com

First Floor, 21 The High Street,

Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire
OX7 5AD

01608 692 310 / 07880 727 150