Hilborough House, Norfolk

Hilborough House was built in 1996-9 to designs made in 1989-90 by the late Francis Johnson. The design was modified in some aspects by Digby Harris. It is the home of the van Cutsem family and the dedication stone was unveiled in 2000 by the Prince of Wales.

The photographs were taken last summer - no interior shots are included to protect the clients' privacy. Digby Harris (architect) and Roger Goldthorpe (assistant - back to camera) can be seen standing in the portico in the last photograph.

Francis Johnson CBE (1911-1995) has recently been made the subject of a monograph by John Martin Robinson and David Neave. Francis Johnson was one of the few architects to continue practising traditional architecture through the period of high modernist hegemony in the late twentieth century. Unlike his contemporary, and rival traditionalist, George Pace, Johnson had little sympathy for Modernist or Gothic Revival thinking and all his work stems from the Classical tradition. During the 1980s his work was compared favourably with that of the new generation of classical architects.

Francis Johnson trained at the Leeds School of Architecture. He toured Europe in 1931 on a travelling scholarship before going to work for Allderidge & Clark in Hull. He began his own practice in 1937 in his home town of Bridlington, East Yorkshire. His career was interrupted by the Second World War and he server in the Royal Engineers from 1943 to 1946.

Francis Johnson’s favoured field of work was domestic architecture and he is particularly known for his country houses in the Georgian style. He also designed a number of churches in the post war period for clients including the Church of England Commissioners. Francis Johnson restored and remodelled a large number of historic buildings including Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, and Belton House, Lincolnshire. In his approach to restoration, involving detailed research into the original colour schemes of buildings, he was ahead of his time in the 1960s.

In the last decades of the twentieth century Francis Johnson and bussiness partner Malcolm McKie designed a number of new country houses across the UK. Francis Johnson & Partners is currently run by Digby Harris and Malcolm Stather.

Bibliography

Francis Johnson Architect, John Martin Robinson & David Neave, Oblong Creative (2001).

·  ISBN-10: 0953657434

·  ISBN-13: 978-0953657438