"Oh my, you are ignorant" says Mavis Swenarton, a local historian, when I ask her about the splendid houses built by Tarrant in Weybridge, Byfleet, Pryford and Virginia Water.
Guilty as charged, though in mitigation, Tarrant, a by-word for excellence in Surrey, has never quite risen beyond his considerable local reputation. Lutyens ranged far and wide; Tarrant, meanwhile, carved out a singular niche in areas which are now amongst the most sought-after and prestigious in the whole of the South East, if not the entire UK.
Grand Designs
Walter George Tarrant, who hailed from Hampshire, began as a humble carpenter but announced his ambitions to the world when he set up his own building company in the town of Byfleet in 1895.
He had, says Mavis, "considerable business acumen. When the railway arrived here in 1890 he realised that Byfleet, Weybridge and Woking would become highly attractive to wealthy professionals who wanted a home in the country."
With this in mind he began building appropriately grand residences but he really made the smartest move of his career in 1911 when he bought 964 acres of Surrey scrubland from the Egertons, the family of lord Ellesmere.
This was to become the St Georges Hill Estate, an ambitious development originally conceived as an Elizabethan-style village complete with shops and cottages, an eighteen hole golf course and imposing country houses in grounds of no less than an acre.
The village idea was eventually abandoned and a tennis club, which opened in June 1913, took its place. The golf course followed in October 1913, some houses in 1914, but building was suspended when war broke out and Tarrant didn't get back to work until the 1920s.
After the War
By then he had acquired a prime slice of land in Virginia Water, and this he began to develop as the Wentworth Estate in tandem with his efforts on St Georges Hill.
Impressively organised and directed, he made bricks in his own works and cement and ash in his own gas plant. He also had a workshop for joinery and wrought-iron as well as a timber mill on his five acre base in Byfleet.
Having survived the war, Tarrant then ran into financial trouble when Depression hit and the company went into receivership in 1931. From this the building section emerged intact as Tarrant Builders Limited and work on St Georges Hill continued in the 1930s and 1940s.
Sadly, Tarrant died in 1942, but he left behind an impressive legacy and a reputation for using the best quality materials and high standards of workmanship.
The name still carries considerable cachet in some of Surrey's leafier and more up-market enclaves: Owning a Tarrant house, says Trish Hamilton of the American Agency in Weybridge, is "something of a status symbol."
The Properties
And not without good reason. Aside from enviable locations, Tarrant's houses are finely crafted edifices notable for their attractive hand-made bricks and tiles, tall chimneys, and atmospheric oak panelling. Built with in an Arts and Crafts style, they are redolent of the vernacular architecture pioneered in Surrey by Lutyens.
It was this quality, no doubt, which prompted Pevsner, who took a dim view of the popular versions of Surrey vernacular in the 20s and 30s, to excuse Tarrant's work from censure.
Noting that the "high class suburbs" he designed are "completely delightful" he went on eulogise the "winding roads, trees everywhere, complete informality, houses appearing piecemeal among the scenery."
Completely delightful they remain, though these days you'll need somewhere in the region of £3 million to enjoy the privilege on St Georges Hill. "The values are driven by the location and their relative scarcity," says Trish Hamilton.
"About 25% of the properties on the estate (there are 400 properties in all) are by Tarrant. They are identified by a carved stone tablet, set into the wall, with his company logo. The earliest are three properties from 1914."
Because the St George's Hill estate has now mutated into one of the most up-market private enclaves in the country - complete with rock stars, movie idols, and the anonymously wealthy -Tarrant's original properties now rub shoulders with a wild collection of ostentatious mansions conceived in just about every style known to man: freshly minted Tuscan villas, American colonial, and Spanish haciendas are all here, alongside Tarrant's more sedate and traditional designs.
As prices on the Hill spiral ever upwards some of his houses have been demolished and replaced and developers are itching to get their hands on the generous grounds surrounding the remaining ones.
At the moment, there's little to stop them: the properties are not listed and given that many have been altered inside, they're unlikely to be given the protection English Heritage currently extend to an assortment of pillar boxes, pigeon coops and ancient pig-styes.
Away from the pressures which come with so rarified a piece of real estate as St Georges Hill, you can pick up a Tarrant for somewhere in the region of £600,000- 700,000. Quite a few were built around Byfleet and Pryford, though his other great development, the Wentworth estate in Virginia Water rivals St Georges Hill for forbidding exclusivity.
Tarrant would undoubtedly be pleased that his original conception has remained so sought-after and successful; were he to walk around Weybridge toady he could take justified pride in the fact that 'Tarrant-built' adorns many a property detail as a term of approval and a hallmark of quality.
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