1876 – Wispers, Midhurst, Sussex

Grade II listed. The house was built in 1874-1876 by architect Richard Norman Shaw for Alexander Scrimgeour, a stockbroker. It was a private house from its construction until 1939; from 1939 onwards it has housed several schools. It has been added to considerably since its original completion. Illustration published in The Building News, June 2 1876.

Described by Pevsner as “By Norman Shaw, 1876, before he started to design in the pretty tile-hung style associated with him. Not very good, and really hardly distinguishable from the standard large Victorian house. Stone ground floor, ornate half-timbering and gables above; limp and mechanical, without any of the picturesqueness his compositions of the 1870s sometimes have. The best thing is the site – high above a steep wooded valley with big views.”

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