Description

Open Oct - April, Saturdays 10am - 4.30pm ONE OF HOBART'S hidden gems, Markree is an important 1926 house, garden and collection of furniture and decorative arts that embody an Arts & Crafts Movement design ethos. Markree's creators, Cecil and Ruth Baldwin were highly engaged in the design of their home Cecil as landscape gardener and Ruth as a craftswoman. Markree and adjacent Red Knights, built for Ruth Baldwin's unmarried sisters, Hilda and Mary Maning, were designed by Hobart architect, Bernard Ridley Walker. The two houses were designed to be complementary in terms of their dramatic roofscapes, sculptural brickwork and shingle-clad verandas. Bernard Ridley Walker (18841957) was a partner in the Hobart architectural and engineering firm, Hutchison & Walker. From 1911 to 1913 Walker lived in London where he absorbed the influence of the Arts & Crafts Movement through the work of architects, Edwin Lutyens and Charles Voysey. Walker's leading Hobart works are the Cenotaph in the Hobart Domain, additions to the Friends School, North Hobart and development of the Cadbury Estate, Claremont. Markree was built at an estimated cost of £1,800 by Crow and Ayers of Montpelier Retreat.