M/M Interview with Digby Harris

Image of Palladian facade of Home Farm, Hartforth provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

This exclusive interview with Home Farm, Hartforth architect Digby Harris of Francis Johnson & Partners was conducted by Nicola Linza and Cristoffer Neljesjö in Bridlington, UK during July 2012

Reflections of Country Life: Home Farm, Hartforth

an exclusive portrait of SirJosslyn Gore-Booth and his new house including an interview with Home Farm, Hartforth architect Digby Harris and a critique by Dr John Martin Robinson


How did the dual-sided façade programme of Home Farm, Hartforth develop?

My recollection is that, standing on the Bridge over the Hartforth Beck on that bitter cold Ash Wednesday afternoon in 2004, I voiced some concern about whether a Classical Villa at Home Farm to the east would be right in the context of Hartforth Hall to the west, for fear that it might be deemed to be competing with the Hall for dominance of the valley. In a subsequent conversation, I suggested a Gothick façade and Sir Josslyn pointed out what I had not appreciated, that the utilitarian farm buildings at Hartforth (except Home Farm) had been given Gothick dress in the early C19th. Only after I had sketched the Taylorean Villa floor plan did the idea of Francis Johnson’s dual faced fantasy house of 1943, conceived whilst he awaited his call-up to war service, come to mind. This had a bowed Gothick façade on one side and a plain Classical façade under a giant pediment on the other. I recall my excitement when I realized how perfectly this scheme would fit the programme at Hartforth and how we could make a very good and convincing argument for the demolition of the inoffensive little old farmhouse and its replacement with something much more ambitious. (Home Farm falls within the Hartforth Conservation Area and, under Planning Policy guidelines, there is a presumption against demolition in a Conservation Area).

Whilst Home Farm had some of the characteristics of a Georgian Model Farm, it lacked any decorative element and I felt the new farmhouse could make good that deficiency.

Image of foot of stairs with Lissadell Specimen Table provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

As Georgian influenced, was it an early intention that the main house’s extraordinary entry hall and staircase act as a central and dramatic focus to tie together the divided plan?

As seldom happens, the initial floor plan is almost exactly what was built. So, having decided on three Gothick elevations and one Classical, the challenge was to treat each room so that the external window form was consistent with the style of the room within.

Image looking up into staircase dome provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

The Entrance Hall, on the farmyard side, is Classical whereas the Drawing Room and Dining Room overlooking the park are Gothick. The Staircase Hall, being top-lit, could have gone either way but we decided on Gothick, to have a little more fun! Sir Josslyn and I bought copies of Batty Langley’s Gothic Architecture Improved for inspiration and several of our details can be traced to that source. The Drawing Room chimneypiece is the most “original” thing I have ever designed, its form and details having been drawn from many different sources. I was astonished and delighted at its appearance after it had been marbled and gilded by Charles Hesp with a boldness I had never imagined.

Image of canal, smoking shelter and Gothick eyecatcher of Home Farm, Hartforth provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

What was the inspiration for the grounds and gardens?

Sir Josslyn and Lady Gore-Booth both expressed their lack of interest in gardening at the outset. (Jane Gore-Booth has subsequently become hooked!). They are both however very interested in what they eat so it was decided to have a small walled garden near the house for growing of those choice salad crops and vegetables so prized by the discerning and difficult to obtain from the shops. This proved a great success.

Otherwise the scheme arrived at by me and Mike Ibbotson of Colvin and Moggridge consists of a long elevated terrace running from west to east separated from the parkland to the south by a stone faced retaining wall. On the east side, centred on the Drawing Room bay is a canal, and beyond an iron clair voyée, a decorative orchard. The axis is closed by a Gothick eye-catcher. The parkland to the south has been greatly improved by the removal of an unsightly piggery. A major tree planting programme has begun this year, to recreate a parkland in the C18th idiom.

As one grows older, a garden scheme which involves some concentrated horticultural effort immediately adjacent to the house separated from parkland by an elevated terrace has much to recommend it. Many years ago, I was shown Lutyens’ Ednaston Manor where the elaborately architectural south terrace drops straight into parkland, and the contrast struck me as being highly effective.

Image of east elevation viewed from the orchard at Home Farm, Hartforth provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

Please describe the outbuildings

The existing outbuildings which enclose the farmyard on the north side consist of an early C19th granary over an open arched cart shed, a small C18th barn and two ranges of single storey cow houses. In the angle between the barn and one range of cow houses is a polygonal C19th “gingang”. This is a characteristic feature of farmyards in north east England and housed a horse-driven engine, the motive power of which was used for threshing, turnip chopping and the like. These Listed Buildings were restored as a condition of the consent for the new Home Farm house.

Image of Old Home Farm, Hartforth provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

Image of  New Home Farm, Hartfoth provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

Are there any future architectural follies planned for the grounds?

A triple ogee arched garden temple overlooks the canal in the east garden. It was labelled “Smoking Shelter” on our drawings as a jocular reference to the smoking ban and Sir Josslyn’s fondness for large Havana cigars.

The eastern axis from the Drawing Room bay is terminated by a Gothick eye-catcher, designed to draw the viewer’s attention away from the adjacent pair of utilitarian farmworkers’ cottages. Its design is based on that of “The Whim” at Blair Atholl in Scotland, though much smaller. There is an element of trompe l’oeil to it, learned from Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, in that the (blocked) door openings are smaller than life-size, which has the effect from a distance of exaggerating its scale.

The Colvin and Moggridge scheme for the park does indicate one substantial eye-catcher on the far side of the valley and I am eagerly awaiting Sir Josslyn’s instructions….

Image of Drawing room looking into entrance hall of Home Farm, Hartforth provided by Francis Johnson & Partners. All rights reserved.

For our readers, how would you best describe the main floor layout as a villa form clearly inspired by Carr of York?

What I have described as the Taylorean villa was a concept much used and developed by John Carr in the second half of the C18th. As a fellow Yorkshireman, I am understandably proud of his achievement and my late partner, Francis Johnson, was sometimes described as “a latter day Carr of York”. The Carr plan which is perhaps most like Hartforth is Middleton Lodge at Middleton Tyas coincidentally only a few miles away.

The principal features of these villas are a central top-lit staircase hall and a limited number of  intercommunicating rooms arranged around it and of varied shapes. Thus at Hartforth the staircase hall is elliptical, the dining room has a semi-circular bow and the drawing room is rectangular with a semi-octagonal bay on the long side. The kitchen, for good practical reasons, is rectangular. The diversity of room shapes gives that quality of “movement” to the elevations so prized by Robert Adam.

The plan works equally well at first floor level and on the second floor there is a bedroom in the south bow and Sir Josslyn’s study above the entrance hall on the north side. It is lit by a Diocletian window in the apex of the giant pediment and from this eyrie he can observe all the comings and goings in the Hartforth hamlet below.

The above interview with Digby Harris 2012 © Manner of Man Magazine. All rights reserved. Reproduction is strictly prohibited without written permission from the publisher