Woodlands - Woodland Royd - Buckinghamshire's Local Heritage List

Location/Address

Hollybush Hill, Stoke Poges, SL2 4QN

Type

Building

Roofed and walled permanent structures.

Description

A large Victorian residential house. Formerly one home, now split into two homes. This is a building of note within the conservation area of Stoke Poges Framewood Road

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Statement of Significance

Asset type

Victorian building associated with well known men

Architectural and Artistic Interest

Built in a decorative English revival style with Tudor half-timbered gables, tile-hanging, multi-paned casement windows, prominent corbelled chimneys and ridge crests. The materials of red brick and plain clay tiles are in tune with the local vernacular. It appeared in an international journal called the Scientific American supplement of 1882. An image was published with the following information: ' The illustration represents a house recently reconstructed. The dining-room wing was alone left in the demolition of the old premises, and this part has been decorated with tile facings, and otherwise altered to be in accordance with the new portion. The house is pleasantly situated about a mile from Stoke Church of historic fame, in about 15 acres of garden, shrubbery, and meadow land. The hall and staircase have been treated in wainscot oak, and the whole of the work has been satisfactorily carried out by Mr. G. Almond, builder, of Burnham, under the superintendence of Messrs. Thurlow & Cross, architects.' It has been extended and divided so that the east side is now called Woodland Royd with its own main entrance on east aspect.

Group Value

Significant number of gentlemen’s residences in the surrounding neighbourhood were built in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period. They include homes such as Framewood Manor, Wexham Place, Hill House, Carlton Tower, Pinewood, Fulmer Grange and Fulmer Court, Some of these homes are located in the Framewood Road Conservation Area including this asset. Some of these homes are nationally listed. Woodlands is located in this Conservation Area. It is featured in the Conservation Area Character Appraisal Report of July, 2011, where it is shown as an unlisted building which makes a positive contribution and is an undesignated heritage asset. The gentleman’s residence clients commissioning these houses have been influenced by the fashion of the time; these buildings were individually designed and were by no means uniform, yet together, they form an important heritage feature in terms of the development of the area and the influence of new money from men working in London and living in the countryside...following the establishment of fast railways lines nearby (eg Gerrards Cross to Marylebone and Slough to Paddington)

Historic Interest

There are several men who add quite different heritage values, that have all owned and lived in the house: In 1884 Woodlands was bought by Queen Victoria’s surgeon-extraordinary, Sir William Scovell Savory Bt. (1826-1895). He was an outstanding surgeon and a Fellow of the Royal Society. His only son, Borradaile, inherited the house. He was Rector of St Bartholomew-the-Great, London and Senior Grand Chaplain of English Freemasons. He died at the Woodlands in 1906. A large memorial to him is in St Bartholomew-the-Great. The third baronet, Sir William’s grandson, William Borradaile Savory, also lived in the Woodlands. He was High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. They are all buried in St Giles’ churchyard, Stoke Poges. It is believed in 1935, Sir Henry Robert Moore Brooke-Popham lived in Woodlands. It is not known how long he lived there, especially due to his work abroad. He is named in Kellys Directory of 1935 at Woodlands under the Stoke Poges Residential section. That same year, he was promoted to Air Chief Marshal of the Royal Air Force. He went on to became Governor of Kenya. He was brought out of retirement to serve in the Far East during WWII which resulted in being thought of by many people to be one of the most internationally recognised Allied armies leadership failures.