Pleasaunce, The, Overstrand, Norfolk, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

An early 20th-century Arts and Crafts-style architectural garden by Edwin Lutyens in collaboration with the owners Lord and Lady Battersea, originally covering roughly 20 hectares, now reduced to about 2.5 hectares.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The Pleasaunce lies in the heart of the fashionable Edwardian holiday village of Overstrand, about 2 kilometres east of the main resort of Cromer on the north Norfolk coast. It enjoys a clifftop coastal setting with the north front of the house being in view of the sea. The house stands in the centre of the village, surrounded to east, south, and west by housing. To the north, a flint pebble and tile boundary wall runs alongside a minor road beyond which the land drops away to the sea. The wall extends around the eastern boundary which is formed by a road that divides the house from its stable/garage block and Lutyens' Clock Tower to the east. A section of brick and flint wall also encloses part of the south boundary with Harbord Road. The land is generally flat with a slight fall northwards towards the sea. The low boundary wall to the north allows views both into and out of the site, giving glimpses of the sea through shelter-belt trees from the north terrace, and glimpses of the house from the road.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Gardeners' Chronicle L, (7 October 1911), pp 259-61

L Weaver, Houses and gardens of Sir Edwin Lutyens (1913), pp 51-2

M-L Gothien, The history of garden art (1928), pp 403-5

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: North-east Norfolk and Norwich (1962), p 296

J Brown, Gardens of a golden afternoon (1982), p 164

R Gradidge, Edwin Lutyens Architect Laureate (1982), pp 17-19, 95-6

D Ottewill, The Edwardian Garden (1989), pp 70-1

Elizabeth Jones, Poppyland in Pictures (1993), plates 44-8 [contemporary postcard illustrations]

Maps

Tithe map for Overstrand parish, 1838 (Norfolk Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1886; 2nd edition published 1906

OS 25" to 1 mile: 3rd edition published 1928
 

Description written: May 1999

Edited: March 2001