Commendation for Best Renovation and Conversion
CIRCLING THE GARDEN
Rotunda, Bushy Park, Hampton Hill Gate, Hampton, Middlesex TW12 1NE
During the Second World War, a late-Georgian country house hidden in a royal park in the South of England was used by as the command headquarters of the US Eighth Air Force during the D-Day landings. That house was Upper Lodge, the park was Bushy Park and the secret location was in Teddington, Middlesex, now part of suburban London.
After the war, Upper Lodge was taken over by the Admiralty and used as a research facility from 1945 to 1994. During this period many utilitarian buildings were erected in the grounds, but the most imposing and interesting of these was a torpedo-testing tank. This was a large circular, domed building containing a doughnut-shaped pool 46 metres in diameter (or 140 ft as we and the Americans would have called it), around which torpedoes were spun on the end of a large metal arm.
When the Admiralty vacated Upper Lodge and the rest of the site, architects Norman + Dawbarn were commissioned by a private development company, Priestmere Properties, to renovate and extend the Georgian house - by that time a Grade II listed building - and to convert the stable block of George IV's Royal Stud into nine mews houses, but the biggest challenge was to be to turn the torpedo-testing tank into a modern house.
The Upper Lodge site is an extremely sensitive one, historically and environmentally, and during the early days of the project there were problems with militant protests by eco-warriors, foot and mouth (because of the deer in Bushy Park) and the need to dispose of large quantities of asbestos and to remediate the ground.
In 2002, Priestmere Properties became a dormant company and the development was taken over by Upper Lodge Properties Limited, which has the same registered address, but is an offshore company with unknown directors. Upper Lodge itself has been restored and the mews houses have been built.
Converting the torpedo-testing tank was done by utilising the 4-ft-thick blast-proof curved concrete walls to create the Rotinda, a genuinely unique house and sunken garden. The house itself uses traditional materials such as brick and stucco for its walls, but it also has a copper roof, and it makes use of glass and aluminium in ways that are contemporary rather than traditional. Its construction cost and indeed its selling price are treated almost as top secret, but that goes with the territory.
Homebuilder: UPPER LODGE PROPERTIES LIMITED
32 St James's Street, London SW1A 1HD
Tel 020 7321 5822
Contact: Adrian Labi
9 Kean Street, Covent Garden, London WC2B 4AY
Tel 08702 409988
Fax 020 7836 5558
Website: www.n-d.co.uk
Contact: Adrian Norman, Associate Director.
Email: mail@n-d.co.uk