Howells’ new restaurant building has turned a run-down services area into a leisure asset and made a National Trust house into a local destination
South-west of Droitwich Spa, the 18th century Hanbury Hall is a handsome country pile, given that its design has not been attributed to any architect. Hanbury was commissioned by Thomas Vernon (1654-1721), who inherited it in 1692. A famous and wealthy chancery lawyer, his Queen Anne-style house, complete by 1706, is noted for its entrance hall and staircase. Its walls and ceiling were painted by young artist James Thornhill, who went on to work at Blenheim, the Painted Hall at Wren’s Royal Hospital and on his dome at St Paul’s Cathedral. Here, with its stained oak staircase, his darkly opulent rendition of scenes from the life of Achilles seem to suck the very light from the space.
By contrast, the contemporary parterre garden was a masterclass in sweetness and light. Designed by the celebrated gardener George London, its William and Mary style was influenced by William of Orange’s Het Loo Palace in The Netherlands but would, just years after completion, find itself a victim to taste and be swept away in ‘Capability’ Brown’s Picturesque landscape, which reconfigured the then 3000ha estate. However, after the National Trust took over Hanbury in the 1990s, the south parterre garden was painstakingly recreated to be one of only three such gardens in the country. By contrast, the back-of-house spaces at the rear of the property, separated from the garden only by a high wall, remained as out of mind as they were out of sight; a run-down, closed off courtyard of barns and sheds, out of bounds to visitors.
Until now, that is. On the north side of the parterre wall and attached to the rear end of the Hall’s south wing, architect Howells’ new single-storey pavilion restaurant has completely reanimated the stables area. It provides a much-needed eatery and event space for burgeoning visitor numbers – part of a wider strategy to bring the courtyard back into use. With the opening of a sealed-up coach entrance on the north side, the courtyard is reached from a side road and gives the Hall an alternative accessible entrance and fire escape. A once-gravelled central space has been fully paved in Yorkstone setts, meaning the restaurant can spill into the courtyard in summer. Re-opening of the coach arch also provides luxuriant vistas from pavilion to the courtyard and out to the estate beyond.
Meanwhile, at the back of the Grade I-listed hall, Howells knew context was all in the application for listed building consent and planning permission for the newbuild when it was appointed in 2018. Collaborating with Donald Insall Associates and with the input of both its National Trust client and statutory consultee Historic England, the firm eventually gained consent later that year.
Howells director Tom Shenton explains that its long, low design, running alongside the courtyard’s south wall, respects not only the red brick materiality of the main house, but also the nature and volumes of neighbouring buildings – referencing the punctured brick structure of the parterre garden’s nearby Orangery and the scale of the Long Gallery immediately west, on the other side of the wall. Shenton adds that the concrete slab of the new pavilion was designed to ‘float’ above the foundations of the ancillary buildings that originally ran along this wall, with new screw piles below a brick-clad perimeter beam that pick up the loads of the completely timber-framed building and leave original foundations undisturbed and intact below.
The pavilion itself consists of two main elements; a terracotta-tiled hipped roof volume which forms the main body of the structure and, in front of it, a post-and-beam, flat-roofed, glazed protrusion. These 300mm by 250mm posts on limestone plinths support main beams that run back along to the original wall. Shenton is keen to underline the sustainability credentials of the new building, partly attributed to a choice of untreated oak, sourced from the National Trust’s nearby Brockhampton Estate, which was supplied at cost to the contractor. Its ‘green-ness’ accounts for pre-emptive internal shadow gap detailing with roof rafters, adds Shenton, so both can move relative to each other over time without unsightly deformation. The Keller Minimal full height glazing in between slides across at three points to open half this elevation to the new terrace in front. Shenton notes that Howells plumped for a painted aluminium section rather than a timber one due both to the 3.2m height and to maximise sightlines for users.
The decision to adopt the pitched roof form is mindful of the context, registering both that of the Grade I-listed hall and the adjacent Long Gallery, whose height here it consciously defers to. It does, however, peek out above the parterre wall, allowing its roof extent to be perceived from the south side. The choice of locally sourced clay tiles both as the roofing material and as hung tiles on the main body of the pavilion helps bed the building in further, complementing the wall itself. Its monolithic nature is emphasised by the use of ‘specials’, allowing tiles to wrap elegantly around building corners – and notably to help create an ‘invisible’ slot gutter detail to the pitch on the courtyard side. Below this, a Sika specified warm flat roof runs out to meet the timber posts. The roof is neatly detailed, but as it is visible from one overlooking window in the south wing, Howells says that had the budget allowed,it would have specified an extensive green roof and capitalised on its surface area to better integrate it with the landscape around.
Howells associate interior designer Charlotte Gallen explains that the practice chose a muted colour palette internally, picking out existing shades evident in the main house. This accounts for the sage green of the wainscotting that runs around the interior surfaces of the restaurant, parts hiding storage areas. Keen observers will notice that these panels line up with both the ceiling layout and the flooring tiles. While the firm would have liked to have run Yorkstone paviors through the restaurant areas, Gallen says it was mindful of the performance of any flooring in a space that was both highly trafficked and which needed to be easily cleaned and maintained, resulting in its choice of 600mm by 600mm Core Collection porcelain floor tiles in ‘Terra’.
The long, generous servery has picked up on oak detailing evident in the main house, formed of narrow, vertical oak slats that meet a crisp white marble worktop. Visible behind this is the large kitchen, which sits beneath the pitched roof and makes use of the void below it to run significant levels of air feed and venting. These are supplied from the plant room which is positioned at the west end of the pavilion, adjacent to the entrance lobby and its accessible WC. Refurbished male and female toilets in the main house avail themselves of quite notable ceiling heights, chromatically mitigated by Howells’ choice of a deep blue paint on walls that echoes the dark feel of the old entrance hall.
The interface of new to old is marked by Howells’ glazed link, which is rooflit for added effect, all supplied by IQ Glass. Along with the ‘Brooke Air’ PPC aluminium louvre grill with concealed fixings below, which runs to coincide with the brick plinth of the pavilion and the terracotta hung tiles, this particular junction is, says Shenton, his favourite part of the building, bringing all its constituent elements together. Whether this particular aspect is noticed by the general public is immaterial, given that the whole is so successfully integrated into its context.
When PiP visited, at least one visitor pointed out how the new pavilion had transformed the experience of Hanbury Hall, turning it into a local destination for casual dining after leisurely walks in beautiful gardens, making Hanbury Hall a draw for the community as well as for visitors from all over the country.