The Salutation is a

grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

house in

Sandwich, Kent Sandwich is a town and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, south-east England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour and has a population of 4,985. Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval build ...

, England. It was designed and built by

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials ...

in a Queen Anne style in 1911–12, as a weekend home and country retreat for members of the Farrer family. It was one of the first 20th-century buildings to be given a grade I listing, in 1950. Other structures in the grounds received a grade II listing in 1986. It has been described by Nigel Jones as "the perfect house that many in Britain aspire to own", and by Arthur Stanley George Butler as "Sir Edwin's supreme rendering of the full Georgian idiom … This very perfect work establishes itself as a high peak in Sir Edwin's achievement". In recent years, the house was operated as a

bed and breakfast A bed and breakfast (typically shortened to B&B or BnB) is a small lodging establishment that offers overnight accommodation and breakfast. In addition, a B&B sometimes has the hosts living in the house. ''Bed and breakfast'' is also used to ...

establishment, and from 2017 to 2020 as a hotel and restaurant.

House

The house is at eastern end of Upper Strand Street in Sandwich, with the Quay beside the River Stour to the north and St Clement's church to the south. It is named after an inn that used to occupy part of the site. The plot of is surrounded by boundary walls of flint, stone and brick, including part of the Sandwich town wall, and the site includes several older grade II ancillary buildings. The main entrance leads east from Knightrider Street, through an arch formed by Lutyens through two-storey 18th century brick buildings, supported by a plaster cornice, to a forecourt in front of the west façade of the house. The main house is a rectangular red brick block with stone

quoins Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th-century encyclopedia, ...

, comprising two storeys, plus attic and semi-basement. The west front is symmetrical with seven bays, the central bay and two neighbouring narrow bays projecting slightly, topped by a tile

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

with three dormer windows and two tall brick chimney stacks. A single-storey wing to the north was originally servants' quarters, in a more vernacular Kentish style also with two tall brick chimneys. The east façade similarly has seven bays, with three French windows on the ground floor and a sundial in the central bay of the first floor, and four dormer windows in the roof. The south façade has five bays and three dormers. The interior, approximately excluding the attic, is based on a

Palladian Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...

3×3 grid, with an unusual cut-out in the north façade to allow light to reach the central stairs, creating a U-shape. Steps sweep up from the forecourt to double entrance doors in the west façade, with carved stone door case and

broken pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In ancient ...

. The reception hall has two corkscrew columns, and leads to five principal rooms on the ground floor: one to either side of the hall – the wood-panelled library and another room – and three across the east front – a kitchen, oval dining room and drawing room. A passageway leads to the single-storey north wing, which includes the main kitchen. Stairs lead down to the cellar, and a wide central staircase provides access to the bedrooms on the first and second floors.

Gardens

Three sets of French windows from the dining room lead out of the east front to a garden terrace, with stone steps down to a rectangular garden to the east which has wide mixed borders containing herbaceous plants and shrubs. The garden was probably also originally designed by Lutyens, but inspired by his collaborations with

Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll ( ; 29 November 1843 – 8 December 1932) was a British Horticulture, horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United Sta ...

(no record remains of her direct involvement). A further triangular area of the garden lies the south, with yew hedges and roses. The gardens also include a

kitchen garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

and tropical garden, an informal water garden to the north with "Lake Patricia" installed in the 1960s, extensive collections of

dahlia ''Dahlia'' ( , ) is a genus of bushy, tuberous, herbaceous perennial plants native to Mexico and Central America. Dahlias are members of the Asteraceae (synonym name: Compositae) family of dicotyledonous plants, its relatives include the sun ...

s and echinops, a jungle garden, and an avenue of holm oaks. The gardens took several years to recover from seawater flooding after

Cyclone Xaver Cyclone Xaver (or Storm Xaver), also known as the North Sea flood or tidal surge of 2013, was a winter storm that affected northern Europe. Force 12 winds and heavy snowfall were predicted along the storm's path, and there were warnings of a s ...

caused a

tidal surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the ...

on the River Stour on 6 December 2013.

History

Henry Farrer, son of solicitor Sir William Farrer, commissioned Sir

to design and built the house in 1911–12. It was occupied by Henry and his two brothers (all bachelors) William (also solicitor, like Henry and their father) and

Gaspard Farrer Gaspard may refer to: *Gaspard (name) * ''Gaspard'' (novel), 1915 French novel by René Benjamin which won the Prix Goncourt * ''Gaspard and Lisa'' (TV series), a British–American–French animated television series * Gaspard the Fox, a real ur ...

(a partner at

Barings Bank Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London. It was one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member ...

). Lutyens also build a

town house A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residen ...

for the brothers at 7

St James's Square St James's Square is the only square in the St James's district of the City of Westminster and is a garden square. It has predominantly Georgian architecture, Georgian and Neo-Georgian architecture. For its first two hundred or so years it was ...

, and renovated the premises of the law firm

Farrer & Co Farrer & Co is a British law firm headquartered in London, England serving private individuals, charitable institutions and corporations. They have, over their more than three hundred years of operation, acted for many of the Kings and Queens o ...

Lincoln's Inn Fields Lincoln's Inn Fields is located in Holborn and is the List of city squares by size, largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a ...

. After the death of Henry Farrer, the house was inherited by his brother Gaspard. Following Gaspard's death in 1948, it was bought by sculptor Leonard Harold Robert Byng. It was sold in 1977 and run as a plant nursery. Items on the house were published in '' Country Life'' in 13 and 20 September 1962, 10 September 1981 and 1 September 1983. After various proposals for redevelopment were rejected, the house remained in private ownership. It was sold for £2.6 million in 2004 to Dominic and Stephanie Parker, who renovated the house and garden, and used it to run an up-market

establishment. They later became known from their appearances on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

's television programme ''

Gogglebox ''Gogglebox'' is a British reality television series created by Stephen Lambert, Tania Alexander and Tim Harcourt, and broadcast on Channel 4. The series documents families and groups of friends around the United Kingdom who are filmed for the ...

''. The B&B appeared in episode 19 of the fourth series of Channel 4's '' Four in a Bed'' in 2013. The house was put up for sale in April 2013 for £4.5 million, but did not sell. After a period of refurbishment, the building reopened as a hotel and restaurant in 2017. It was closed in January 2020.

References

Hidden Houses of Kent
Country Life, 18 April 2013

Great Buildings

House

Gardens

History

References

External links