Debenham House (or Peacock House) at 8
Addison Road is a large detached house in the
Holland Park
Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road ...
district of
Kensington and Chelsea,
W14. Built in the
Arts and Crafts style by the architect
Halsey Ricardo
Halsey Ralph Ricardo (1854–1928) was an English architect and designer.
He established his practice in 1878, and for 10 years worked in partnership with William De Morgan (1839–1917), for whom he designed tiles, vases, and other artefacts. ...
, it is a
Grade I
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
listed building.
History
The house was designed in 1905 for department store owner
Ernest Ridley Debenham
Sir Ernest Ridley Debenham, 1st Baronet (26 May 1865 – 25 December 1952), was an English businessman. He was responsible for the considerable expansion of the family's retail and wholesale drapery firm between 1892 and 1927.
Biography
Born at ...
.
Debenham had previously lived in another house designed by Ricardo, at 57 Melbury Road in Holland Park.
The house only became known as Debenham House after it was sold on Sir Ernest's death.
From 1955 to 1965 the house was used by the London College of Dance and Drama. In the 1990s it housed the headquarters of Richmond Fellowship and was the venue for Royal Garden Parties.
Architecture
The exterior of Debenham House is
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
, while the interior style is
Arts and Crafts
A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...
. It is richly coloured everywhere. The main parts of exterior are clad in variegated
Royal Doulton
Royal Doulton is an English ceramic and home accessories manufacturer that was founded in 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, and later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of Engl ...
Carrara
Carrara ( , ; , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some Boxing the compass, west-northwest o ...
ware with inset panels faced with green and blue
Burmantofts
Burmantofts is an area of 1960s high-rise housing blocks in inner-city east Leeds, West Yorkshire, England adjacent to the city centre and St. James's Hospital. It is a racially diverse area, with sizable Afro-Caribbean and Irish communities, ...
bricks. Ricardo was an advocate of ‘structural
polychromy
Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors.
Ancient Egypt
Colossal statu ...
’. The glazed materials were also intended to resist the aging effects of the polluted London air. Critic
Jonathan Meades
Jonathan Turner Meades (born 21 January 1947) is an English writer and film-maker, primarily on the subjects of place, culture, architecture and food. His work spans journalism, fiction, essays, memoir and over fifty highly idiosyncratic tele ...
has described the house as "structurally stodgy – an alderman dressed as a hippy."
The interior contains tiles designed by
William De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan (16 November 1839 – 15 January 1917) was an English potter, tile designer and novelist. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles ...
, a mosaic dome painted by
Gaetano Meo
Gaetano Giuseppe Faostino Meo (1849, Basilicata, Italy – 16 January 1925, London, United Kingdom) was an Italian-British artist's model, landscape painter, and a noted craftsman in mosaic and stained glass. His unpublished autobiography is ...
and ceilings painted by
Ernest Gimson
Ernest William Gimson (; 21 December 1864 – 12 August 1919) was an English furniture designer and architect. Gimson was described by the art critic Nikolaus Pevsner as "the greatest of the English architect-designers". Today his reputatio ...
.
The domed hall, the central interior feature, has a first-floor gallery connecting the upstairs rooms. Decoration throughout the house is extraordinarily lavish. Mosaics depict members of the Debenham family as well as subjects from
classical mythology
Classical mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, or Greek and Roman mythology is both the body of and the study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans as they are used or transformed by cultural reception. Along with philosophy and polit ...
. There are
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
and tile fireplaces,
stained glass
Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...
designed by
E. S. Prior and
mahogany
Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...
bookcases with
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
inlays in wood and
mother of pearl
Nacre ( , ), also known as mother of pearl, is an organicinorganic composite material produced by some molluscs as an inner shell layer; it is also the material of which pearls are composed. It is strong, resilient, and iridescent.
Nacre is ...
. The light switches were specially designed and made by the
Birmingham Guild of Handicraft
Birmingham Guild of Handicraft was an Arts and Crafts organisation operating in Birmingham, England, established at the end of the 19th century.
History
The Guild began as a loose part of the Birmingham Kyrle Society, then became a more fully f ...
.
[
]
Filming location
The interior were featured prominently in Iain Softley
Iain Declan Softley (born 28 October 1956) is an English film director, producer, and screenwriter. His films include ''Backbeat,'' ''Hackers, The Wings of the Dove'', ''K-PAX'', ''The Skeleton Key'', ''Inkheart'' and the BBC adaptation of Sadi ...
's ''The Wings of the Dove'' (1997 film).
The exterior of the house was used in the film ''Secret Ceremony
''Secret Ceremony'' is a 1968 British drama-thriller film directed by Joseph Losey and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow and Robert Mitchum.
Plot
Leonora, a middle-aged prostitute, is despondent over the death of her daughter. Cenci, a lo ...
'', directed by Joseph Losey
Joseph Walton Losey III (; January 14, 1909 – June 22, 1984) was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blackliste ...
. Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...
's character Leonora resided at the house in the film. Debenham House has also featured in the television series '' What the Butler Saw'' and '' Spooks''.
The house was used as the filming location of ''Agatha Christie's Poirot
''Poirot'' (also known as ''Agatha Christie's Poirot'') is a British mystery drama television programme that aired on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. David Suchet starred as the eponymous detective, Agatha Christie's fictional Her ...
'' ''Lord Edgware Dies
''Lord Edgware Dies'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in September 1933 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year under the title of ''Thirt ...
'' and ''Cards on the Table
''Cards on the Table'' is a detective fiction novel by the English author Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 November 1936 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retaile ...
''.
The house also features in the 1949 film ''Trottie True
''Trottie True'' is a 1949 British musical comedy film directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and starring Jean Kent, James Donald and Hugh Sinclair. It was known as ''The Gay Lady'' in the US, and is an infrequent British Technicolor film of the period ...
''.
The house features in BBC's Mrs. Bradley Murder Mysteries from 2000 episode 2 'Death at the Opera' Actors include Dame Diana Rigg, Neil Dudgeon dancing tango and David Tennant
David John Tennant (''né'' McDonald; born 18 April 1971) is a Scottish actor. He rose to fame for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor (2005–2010 and 2013) in the BBC science-fiction TV show '' Doctor Who'', reprising the rol ...
. Live music is 'Jealousy' and 'Goodnight Vienna' played by Graham Dalby and The Grahamophones with Martin Loveday featured on violin.
References
Bibliography
*
External links
{{Commons category inline, Debenham House
Houses completed in 1907
Arts and Crafts architecture in England
Halsey Ricardo buildings
Grade I listed houses in London
Houses in Holland Park
Art Nouveau architecture in London
Art Nouveau houses
History of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea