Udney Park Road 36
Road: Udney Park Road
Property: 36
"Detached 2-storey house built after 1932. This house was built of old bricks and timber to give an "olde worlde" effect. Small latticed windows, tiled roof & integral garage." TeddSoc 1975.
See following notes on 36 & 38 put together by David Schenck of Horley from his research on the distinguished Horley, Surrey Architect, Blunden Shadbolt (1879-1949), R.I.B.A.
Blunden Shadbolt (1879–1949) Lic.R.I.B.A.
Architect with the Eye of an Artist Born in an affluent area of Wandsworth in 1879, Blunden Shadbolt had a singularly unfortunate childhood. When he was only two years of age he lost his father, a timber merchant who specialized in mahogany. Devastated and unsettled, his family moved to three different towns over the next few years. As a young boy he was of mild and rather timid disposition, so that when he attended school, he was subjected to bullying. Thankful when his school days ended, he found employment with a firm of architects in Chelmsford. In 1898, Blunden, moved with his mother and two elder sisters from Sudbury, Suffolk to Horley in Surrey where he was articled to architect and surveyor, Arthur Kelway Bamber, who had recently moved to Horley from Chelmsford. However, for reasons unknown, Bamber left Horley in the following year and Blunden was forced to travel to London to complete his training with the far more experienced architect, George A. Hall, a Fellow of the British Institute of Architects whose office was in Victoria Street, London. By the end of 1899, he had returned to Horley and by 1901, had completed work on several houses, the designs of which were typical of the period. But what of the amazing multi-gabled, timber-framed buildings with their complex roof structures for which he later achieved renown? Blunden was a deeply religious man of outstanding integrity and was strongly influenced by the lovely rural surroundings that he found while working in Newdigate, Rusper and other villages around Horley. He loved God and he loved Nature and having observed that nothing in nature was completely straight, he determined that his timber-framed houses should be likewise and so be in complete harmony with the trees around them! Only ancient bricks, stone, tiles and oak beams were used in the construction of these homes and every effort was made to avoid a ‘mechanical’ appearance. His builders were not permitted to use plumb lines, so that the vertical accuracy of the construction depended entirely on the judgement of the eyes. Similarly, rows of bricks were deliberately set slightly out of line and the ridges of roofs distorted to give the appearance of having sagged with age. Any moss growing on the old tiles was carefully preserved, so that on the day of completion, his timber-framed houses appeared in a style aptly described by one historian as ‘wibbly-wobbly’. These homes not only appeared ancient, but were genuinely ancient on the very day of their completion. Bricklayers were often reluctant to work on the buildings that Shadbolt designed in this style, for fear that, because of the uneven nature of the bricklaying, their future employment prospects might be jeopardised. It was said by a builder of the time that some bricklayers who worked on these buildings, even took to covering their faces, so that they would not be recognised. Such was Blunden Shadbolt’s talent and attention to detail that, in years long past, several of his houses were believed to be centuries old and inadvertently classified as ‘Listed Buildings’. Today, a growing number of his houses have been ‘Listed’ and ‘Graded’ by Local Councils with full knowledge of the year of construction, but on their own merits and because they were designed by Blunden Shadbolt. It is important to note that not all the timbered houses designed by Blunden Shadbolt were built in this ‘wibbly-wobbly’ style, as this would depend on the wishes and financial resources of each customer and Blunden’s own consideration of the area surrounding the proposed site. Typical features found on Shadbolt’s ‘wibbly-wobbly’ timber-framed properties are:– complex multi-gabled roofs; roof ridges that appear to have sagged with age; catslide roofs – having one side longer that the other; upper rooms that overhang the room below; minstrel’s galleries; exterior brickwork deliberately laid out of true horizontal and vertical alignment; walls of rooms not truly vertical or square to one another; massive chimneys, often on outer walls and inglenook fireplaces, some having a small window in the inglenook. A few of his houses feature an oriel window. Blunden was greatly encouraged by the sales and enquiries that had resulted from exhibiting his nature-blending show homes in the Ideal Home Exhibitions of 1924 and 1926 and now 48 years of age, he married Joyce Woodward Court in the Solihull, District of Warwickshire, on 2nd August 1927. They then returned to live above Blunden’s office at 32, Victoria Road, Horley, where they remained until early in 1930, by which time he had decided to build a family home for his wife and first daughter on the one and a half acres of orchard covered land that he had acquired in 1929. The beautiful timbered-framed home and office that he built on this land was aptly named Orchards and it was completed in 1930. During the ensuing period, Blunden Shadbolt’s reputation spread further afield and, by 1939, his timber-framed properties were to be found in Barns Green (near Horsham); Betchworth; Blindley Heath; Bognor Regis; Charlwood; Copthorne; County Oak (near Crawley); Danbury, Essex; Esher; Haslemere; Highgate; Hindhead; Hope (in Derbyshire); Horley; Kingston; Lowfield Heath (near Crawley); Margate; Maidenhead; Mill Hill, (London); Newchapel (near Lingfield); Newdigate; Newhaven; North Lancing; Outwood; Oxshott, Leatherhead; Peasmarsh (near Battle); Petersham; Pinner; Pyrford Green; Reigate; Rusper; Salfords; Watford and Worth (near Crawley, Sussex). Blunden Shadbolt was qualified both as an Architect and a Structural Engineer, so that during WWII, his time was almost entirely taken up advising on the structural repairs of buildings damaged by bombing, and when the war ended in 1945, he finally retired. Tragically, Blunden died during the summer of 1949, when he was knocked off his bicycle by a car. He was then 70 years of age. An architect who turned his dreams into delightful reality, Blunden Shadbolt was the most generous of men, to whom “having money” was simply not the most important thing in his life. His love of God and of Nature is reflected in the beauty of his buildings and we are indeed fortunate that he left such a wonderful legacy in this south-eastern corner of England. © David H. J. Schenck Revised 20th August 2017 david.schenck790@btinternet.com You are welcome to share this mini-biography with others providing it remains complete and unaltered.
This page is part of the Directory of Buildings of Townscape Merit (BTMs) and Listed Buildings in Teddington assembled by the Planning and History Groups of The Teddington Society. Click on any photo for a higher resolution version. Copyright for the material on this page rests with the contributor.