Summary

Moon gate and adjoining garden walls, probably built in the mid-1930s.

Description

Moon gate and adjoining garden walls, probably built in the mid-1930s.

MATERIALS: The gate and walls are constructed of red brick and plain tiles.

PLAN: The wall is formed of two sections. The south wall is approximately 110m long and runs west from the east side of early C20 greenhouses for around 20m, from where it curves south-west and south-east in a serpentine shape along the west side of the tennis court. The moon gate is located along the north stretch, around 3m west of the greenhouses. The north wall is approximately 40m long and curves from the north-east corner of the barn in an arc to the north-west for around 15m before turning south for around 25m where it adjoins the south wall.

DESCRIPTION: The walls stand between around 1.8m and 2.5m in height and are constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond. Panels of red brick are separated by shallow buttresses, which are constructed by alternating three courses of brick and three courses of horizontally-laid plain tiles. The wall is roofed, reminiscent of vernacular walling in East Anglia, such as the mud walls of Whittlesey and Eastrea in Cambridgeshire or Ashwell in Hertfordshire. At Burefield the roof has five courses of plain red tile and a curved ridge tile and sweeps over the moon gate with a round arch. The moon gate is round and approximately 1.8m wide. The opening is framed by a border of vertically laid red tiles and an outer border of quoins.

History

The moon gate and adjoining garden walls 30m north-west of Burefield are part of the property of Burefield (NHLE 1494727). They date from the period in the 1930s when the main house was extended and other ancillary service and garden buildings were erected in a picturesque style. Although undated they are no later than 1938 when they were surveyed for the Ordnance Survey map published in 1941.

Moon gates can be found in the designed landscapes of a number of notable country houses, such as some C18 walled gardens, and in some of the early-C20 gardens of Gertrude Jekyll, Sir Edwin Lutyens and Thomas Mawson, author of ‘The Art and Craft of Garden Making’. The moon gate at Burefield, with its pronounced quoins, is nearly the inverse of a dentil gate Mawson designed around 1913 at Lacies Court in Oxfordshire (no longer surviving).

For a more detailed history of Burefield see NHLE 1494727.

Reasons for Listing

The moon gate and adjoining garden wall 30m north-west of Burefield are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* the moon gate is a distinctive feature, clearly inspired by some of the early-C20 gardens of Gertrude Jekyll, Sir Edwin Lutyens and Thomas Mawson, and frames key views of the natural landscape and ornate buildings on this country estate;
* the construction of the gate and wall are a celebration of vernacular craftsmanship and building traditions, the wall being reminiscent of vernacular mud walls found throughout East Anglia, such as those at Whittlesey and Eastrea in Cambridgeshire or Ashwell in Hertfordshire;
* for the architectural quality exhibited in the elegant, tiled gate opening and ornate buttresses.

Historic interest:
* as evidence of the evolving social, ecological, sporting and recreational history of the Broads in the late C19 and C20, and the increased demand for a quieter life in the countryside during the C20.

Group value:
* for the historic and functional group they form with Burefield, a holiday cottage built around 1911 and extended as a family home in the mid-1930s, and its numerous estate buildings including a barn, tractor shed and apple store, a car garage, tennis court, machinery shed, boat shed 65m south of the house and summerhouse, each listed at Grade II.

Recommended Books

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings