EPW026152 ENGLAND (1929) [Unlocated]. UNLOCATED

Ref EPW026152

Date April 1929



The case for considering this location;-

Prince Consort Drive, Ascot

Google Maps Ref ; 51.404076, -0.698382



This location is 600 metres due south from the centre of Englemere pond.

The main stand at Ascot racecourse is 1500 metres to the North East for added location.



Why is this the only house on the road that is facing SSW when all the others face SW?

I think that it is because it was the first house to be built. The plots around being sold off gradually

Over the years. The newer houses all conform to being parallel to the NW–SE direction of the road.



I have not got maps of the correct scale and period to check but either the road has been straightened at sometime

Or the curve might be due to a lens distortion… I favour the former.

Any one live nearby to knock on the door and see if there is anything in the owners deeds?

I am sure they would love to have a copy of the photograph if it is their house.



The original picture shows woodland which is pretty bare for an April photograph but this woodland, now quite mature, is pretty much in evidence on Google.



The Google maps reference lands you on the drive that is nearest to you in the 1929 picture.

The angle of the drive to the right as you drive in, is the same today as it is in the 1929 picture.

The drive to the top of the picture beyond the house is now the entry to the next house beyond.



Since the late 1920’s when this house was built it has probably been subject to at least a couple of major upgrades, but the basics are still there. The garage block has lost it’s small dormer window but it would be cheaper to re-roof it in that simpler fashion. The roof on the house in the picture looks to be a four-pitch roof with a central well which not only increases the tile area and creates the potential for water ingress problems that are difficult to access in the centre of the house it also wastes the extra valuable floor space. Again when re roofing this it would be cheaper to do it as per the modern house with an overall four pitch roof which is what I believe has happened. At the same time as doing this

the gable end facing us in the original picture has been removed to simplify the roof structure on that elevation.

The front of the house has been altered, there no longer being a projection of the elevation nearest to us out in front of the house ie; to the right in the picture.

The front elevation now runs the whole of the front width of the house so that front is now aligned with the

ridge of the garage. This would simplify the roof construction and therefore its cost whilst adding extra living space,

the usual reason for major works.



Having searched the rest of the area pretty thoroughly this is the only property I can find with the relevant orientation

to a road and to the compass direction. The developments I have listed are all likely and feasible and are based on my knowledge of housing development.



If the property shown in the picture is still in existence I believe this is the most likely candidate in this area.

OK if this is anywhere near Englemere House, and from the same flight, then it was probably taken within a short time of the Englemere shots. The sun is almost due West of Englemere House, so those shots were taken mid-late afternoon. If this shot was indeed taken within a short time, then this house faces roughly due west, with the road to its north running east-west and bearing away slightly northward at the curve. (I know that's a lot of ifs, but it's a start - but it may not be correct.)



This is borne out a little by the orientation of the house... west facing entrance front, the utilitarian side with garage doors facing north, rear of the house facing east to get the morning sun in kitchen and breakfast room, and the facade opening onto formal gardens oriented due south. That would be a fairly standard arrangement for a house at this time.



In terms of architecture, I think the label Arts and Crafts may have been a little misleading. It's from that stable but probably 'sub-Arts and Crafts'. A built-in garage for a house of this size means it's almost certainly post-1920, and the marks on the garden and piles of rock suggest the landscaping is very new. So it may be a house of a few years old at maximum. The general bareness and small trees lining the drive support that idea.

Katy,



Thanks for the additional information on the flights.



The pine trees on relatively flat land in the smudgy background are perhaps the most important locational pointer. This would clearly point to the Surrey heathland - Sunningdale in terms of the flights suggested. This increasingly fragmented area of heathland stretches from Dorset, Hampshire (New Forest) in Surrey and Sussex (Ashdown Forest). However, there is not a lot of this type of territory around Hastings.... unless they caught a house on the way back from Hastings. It does on look quite right for Ashdown Forest, but that is a purely subjective comment.



Other areas of heath include parts of Suffolk and Norfolk around the Brecklands. Liverpool is outside the distribution of this type of natural vegetation in the UK.



Arts and Crafts House it may be .... but it is not an Edwin Lutyens house.

Additional thought ... the earth work in the front of the picture would be about the right size for a tennis court and appears to include heaps of earth on the down grade side ready for levelling ... there is a nice set of steps in place already for, "anyone for tennis".



I have also trawled the web for references to Art and Crafts houses in Ascot ... nothing that fits.

Having just spent 30 mins wondering around the modern images of Ascot area I must abandon the attempt to find a match. Defining features would seem to be the bend in the road (relative easy to pick up from any orientation), the square of internal roof over the centre of the building (there are a lot of large houses in Ascot with central flat roofs but I could not see one like this), the slope of the garden and the steps are less likely to have changed than other landscape features and the curve of the drive would probably still be the same although it could be well hidden by the trees. Looking for more than about four variables at a time is probably counter productive.



The edge of the forest (which looks as if it has been burnt in the original picture) may well have moved as additional houses were built as indeed the character of the ground in front of the house, where the marks on the earth might suggest further building or is this just yet more landscaping. While this might seem to be a large house in 1929, I suspect that it would be somewhat middle sized for Ascot today. However it has bigger grounds than many more modern houses in the area.

For the avoidance of doubt am I correct in saying that we do not have a location for this one at present? We suspect that it is in the Ascot area but we have no evidence of it's exact location.

I think this belongs to the set EPW026141 - EPW026151 which immediately precede this photo, also taken in April 1929 and in a similar looking area (very wooded, lots of deciduous trees without leaves) and with the same long, late afternoon shadows to the east. That would make the location for this somewhere around Englemere House, Ascot.

From other photos in the series which were taken with the sun more or less in the west and with shadows to the east, this is looking c. west

This house has an Arts and Crafts look to it, and the grounds look fairly recently landscaped - so possibly only 10-20 years old when the photo was taken?