THERE’S more than a touch of the theatrical about substantial, Grade II-listed The Court at Chorleywood, near Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. It’s not entirely surprising, given that the house was built in 1911–12 for the Victorian actor-manager Sir George Alexander in the style described by Pevsner as Domestic Revival, a precursor of the Arts-and-Crafts Movement. The house was designed, not by Edwin Lutyens, as some experts claim, but by his pupil, John Duke Coleridge, probably because Lutyens, who was first approached, was too busy building New Delhi when the time came.
Having started out as a leading actor with Sir Henry Irving’s theatre company, Alexander took over as actor-manager of London’s St James Theatre in 1891. He soon became known and. The latter was an immediate hit on its launch in 1895, but was withdrawn a few months later when Wilde was tried and imprisoned on charges of homosexual behaviour. Alexander later revived it, in 1909, following the rebuilding of the St James Theatre. He was knighted in 1911 and died at Chorleywood in March 1918.
