Marshcourt

Marshcourt, also spelled Marsh Court, is an Arts and Crafts style country house in Marsh Court, near , Hampshire, England. It is constructed from quarried chalk. Designed and built by architect Edwin Lutyens during 1901–5, it is a Grade I listed building. The gardens, designed by Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Lutyens built Marshcourt for Herbert Johnson, a trader on the , where he had accumulated a fortune of half a million pounds. He bought a hillside site overlooking the River Test, and approached Lutyens after seeing his work portrayed in Country Life. They became lifelong friends.

The house was built on the hillside out of locally-quarried chalk cut as ashlar, known as clunch. Lutyens interspersed pieces of black flint and red tiles in the masonry. The exterior design of the house is Tudor, with mullioned and transomed windows, and twisted brick chimneys. "Elizabethan bricks" were supplied by the Daneshill Brick and Tile Company, an enterprise set up by another Lutyens client, Walter Hoare.

The north, entrance front on the higher ground is two-storey, in an E-plan with the facades displaying predominantly horizontal lines. The south, garden front is taller, less symmetrical, and with emphatic vertical lines. The west end of the south front is dominated by chimney stacks. At the east end of the south front, a wing projects forward, enclosing a service courtyard.

Internally, a long corridor runs east to west, with the main rooms all south-facing. The interior design is neoclassical. The oak-panelled hall features two friezes carved in chalk, with classical festoons. The dining room is panelled in walnut veneer. Ceilings have highly decorative plasterwork. There are chalk fireplaces and even a chalk billiard table. Lutyens also designed the light fittings.

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