Bexleyheath: Red House vs Danson House

Not many boroughs have two historic houses so diametrically opposed within half a mile of each other than Bexleyheath.

William Morris’ Red House (now under the National Trust’s aegis), designed by Phillip Webb under Morris’ supervision, looks very staid to us now. 

It is very red, and L-shaped around a pointed well. There is only the colouring of the brick and porches as decoration, along with the curves above the windows. These days it resembles a Victorian vicarage- although that probably wasn’t far away from Morris or Webb’s thoughts when they were designing it. It is a relentlessly human house- small in scale, with a non-formal garden that seems to bleed into the house itself. It seems harmonious from all angles, including the inside, which is charmingly decorated (it has some anachronistic Morris-isms like the wallpaper, but they still fit). It is slightly incongruous that a house so fitted for people to live in has become a museum.

From the Red House, it’s a walk along Bean Street to its opposite- a Classical museum somehow built as a house- Danson House. 

This is a Georgian formal country house restored to its former glory by English Heritage. It is also smaller inside than it looks, with formal hall complete with Grand Tour alcoves, dining room with baroque paintings, a magnificent oval staircase, classical features, and an organ, and stuffed full of what Georgian slave money could buy. This is all the Red House is not- paint and large-scale formality outside, and ostentatious shows of wealth and mythological allegory within. It is even built on the ridge just to make sure everyone can see it, and so the house can see the formal gardens and lake over the Ha-Ha. The restoration work on the house has been meticulous thanks to some fortuitous interior watercolours of the time (sadly not on display there yet). It also had a contemporary exhibition based on The Yellow Wallpaper, which was worth a look too.

The only feature these two houses share is a modern one- the Tea Room, which probably would have driven both sets of owners apoplectic. Of the two, I’d take Morris’ small orchard over the former 600 acres of Danson House anyday.