Listed Building record TR 16 SW 105 - RED LION HOUSE

Summary

Red Lion House was formerly the Red Lion Inn, and was also the home to children’s animated film maker Oliver Postgate from 1962-1996. The house is 18th century, with two storeys, covered with stucco and a tiled roof (it is a listed building Grade II, NHLE number 1054086). Oliver Postgate converted the public house interior to domestic use in 1962 and also designed and built two houses in the grounds. One to the north for his parents, the socialists Raymond Postgate and Daisy Lansbury, the other to the south an experimental half size test house to demonstrate his own design of solar heating system using air transfer. Hempshall Wood at the rear of the house was the inspiration for the “The Pogles" and “Pogles’ Wood" animated series broadcast on the BBC.

Location

Grid reference TR 1142 6213 (point)
Map sheet TR16SW
District CANTERBURY, KENT
Civil Parish ST COSMUS AND ST DAMIAN IN THE BLEAN, CANTERBURY, KENT

Map

Type and Period (1)

Full Description

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 5273 ST C0SMUS AND ST DAMIAN IN THE BLEAN HONEY HILL
No 74 (Red Lion House) TR 16 SW 3/550
II
2. This was formerly the Red Lion Inn. C18. Two storeys and attics stuccoed. Hipped tiled roof with 2 hipped dormers. Two sashes with glazing bars intact except in one modern ground floor window. Modern porch.
Listing NGR: TR1142762131

This was formerly the Red Lion Inn. C18. Two storeys and attics stuccoed. Hipped tiled roof with 2 hipped dormers. Two sashes with glazing bars intact except in one modern ground floor window. Modern porch. (1)

In 1962 Oliver Postgate buys and converts this former public house. “Red Lion House, once the Red Lion Public House, had been built in about 1580, an ancient ‘pre-fab’ with oak beams that were mortised together and numbered with chisel-marks. It had sloping floors and crooked windows and a slightly disreputable air, as if it had once been a highwayman’s haunt. The front yard had been enclosed, so the house now stood a little way back from the road and was set in a rough garden with a dilapidated garage-cum-barn, two wells, a small copse and a stream with a rope on which to swing across it. The interior layout – public bar, private bar, snug, tap-room etc. – was a bit unusual for a dwelling-house but as we looked around the house, Pru [Prudence Myers] and I knew that this was where we were going to live our lives.

To my great delight I found that the Essex-boarding in the main room was covering up the original varnished tongue-and-groove boarding of the pub and also that the ugly suburban fire-surround had been set in front of a huge open fireplace big enough to roast an ox. I ripped out the Essex-boarding and the fire-surround and got the builder to lay in a tiled hearth. We did some decorating and then, on December 22nd 1962, moved in.(p248-9)

In 1966 Oliver Postgate takes inspiration from the adjacent Hempshall Wood for the series “The Pogles", which was followed by “Pogles’ Wood". “The trees in the wood behind Red Lion House were mostly scrubby oaks with brambly under growth – not a very congenial habitat. But among them, relics of an earlier forest, were several massive beech trees. These had wide spreading canopies of leaves under which no brambles grew and wide boles whose gnarled roots spread out to grip the ground. A hollow beech tree would make a well-appointed residence for some woodland persons, a family perhaps. “Mr and Mrs Pogle live in the root of a tree and grow beans in their little garden. I looked all through the wood to find a beech tree with a hole suitable for a Pogle’s front door, but found none. The only thing to do, in fact the obvious thing to do, was to get Peter to make me one in the studio. The Smallfilms studio was behind the home of Peter Firmin, nearby in Blean, Kent. (p251)

In 1964-1965 Oliver Postgate builds a house for his socialist parents Raymond Postgate (journalist and mystery novelist) and Daisy Lansbury (daughter of Labour Party leader George Lansbury). “In the end Prue and I decided to offer them the outbuildings: the dilapidated garage/barn in the corner of the garden, which they could, if they wished, and if building permission were to be forthcoming, rebuild as a sort of mews-bungalow for themselves over a store-room and garage. Slightly to my surprise, they jumped at the offer and we went ahead with the project. Ray and Daisy were very clear about what they wanted in the way of accommodation so, after a disastrous run-in with a local architect (who proposed a building which not only ignored their wishes but was also ugly), they asked me to design it for them.

This was an enormously exciting idea. I had always wanted to design a house – not necessarily an extraordinary, innovative sort of house but one for people to live in, a house that would make the best of the necessary limitations and considerations and site comfortably in the landscape.

I now think that Red Lion Cottage did just about fill the bill. The only serious design fault was that Daisy and Ray had specified a spacious open-plan living room and kitchen, with two smallish bedrooms. That was a mistake because they had become so accustomed to having their own space that they got under each other’s feet. They would have been more comfortable with two large bedsitters and a small kitchen-diner. However, this problem was eased shortly before they finally moved in by our turning the store-room under their house into a library and study for Ray. (p259-260)

In 1974 Oliver Postgate builds a half sized house to demonstrate his design of air-transfer system solar heating. “Looking back over the period, during which I did succeed in making contact with some major companies, I can see that although solar heating was felt to be fashionable and virtuous, the final deciding factor was always going to be whether or not it would make money.

Nevertheless it was an interesting and enjoyable project. I made enough money from option licences and consultancy fees to build a half-size solar house in the field beside Red Lion House. This was made of wood and insulated with rock-wool but its thermal characteristics were much the same as those of an ordinary house. It had a large pebble-block under the floor to store the heat and a whole roof of aluminium-foil type collectors.

I received gifts of technical equipment and a great deal of much appreciated encouragement from various academics, including Dr Strange at the University of Kent and Professor Pat O’Sullivan at the University of Wales. I think they both quite enjoyed my rather ham-fisted approach to scientific research, as shown by my tendency to bypass all but the most essential mathematics and, having thought my way to a picture of how something might work, just try it out. I think they may have seen this as being a different style of philosophy rather than what it really was- sheer necessity.
The house worked very well indeed, keeping itself warm from early spring to late autumn and delivering hot water on request all through the summer.

Unfortunately this radiant demonstration of efficiency of the system was not sufficient to convince the sponsor company that it would be profitable. The deciding factor, they told me, was that the artefact did not have a large enough ‘maintenance component.’ When asked what this was they explained that, to be worth marketing, a system needed to require regular maintenance, which the purchaser would regularly have to pay for. (p311-312)
“In April 1979 I was slightly alarmed, as well as honoured, to be asked to deliver this paper at the International Solar Energy Society’s conference at the Royal Institution. I became slightly less nervous when Julian Keable, who had instigated the invitation, told me he was hoping my lecture would serve to lighten the occasion. I think it may have done that, a bit. Certainly there were some good laughs.

That lecture was the swan-song for the solar project. The consultancy continued in a rather half-hearted way until 1981 and then, at a time when public interest in solar energy had almost completely evaporated, it was quietly dropped. (p313)
(2)


<1> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<2> Oliver Postage, 2010, Oliver Postage 2010 "Seeing Things. A Memoir" Canongate Books. Edinburgh. (Archive). SKE56180.

Sources/Archives (2)

  • <1> Map: English Heritage. List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest.
  • <2> Archive: Oliver Postage. 2010. Oliver Postage 2010 "Seeing Things. A Memoir" Canongate Books. Edinburgh..

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Record last edited

Jun 14 2024 2:23PM