Lyndhurst, Clayfield, Heritage villa on London Road in Clayfield, Australia.
Lyndhurst is a timber villa at 3 London Road, Clayfield, with a steeply pitched roof clad in terracotta Marseilles tiles, an early use of that material in Queensland. Its front verandah breaks forward as a porch with a pedimented gable, turned balusters and 8 in × 3 in timber posts set with the wide face outward. Two tall rendered chimneys with concrete caps rise above the roof.
Lyndhurst was built in 1896 for John Reid, principal of J C Hutton & Co., whose Zillmere bacon works was then Australia's largest. It was the first substantial house Robin Dods designed after joining Hall and Dods in August 1896; tenders were called on 5 September and the contract went to Walls and Juster at £1,007. The site came from a 30-acre parcel alienated by Theodore Franz in 1858 and subdivided in the 1870s and mid-1890s.
Dods designed the front garden as three formal terraces with stairs crossing a parterre to a lawn tennis court, hedges with topiary around the perimeter, queen palms flanking the entrance and weeping fig trees to the east and rear. This garden was lost when the property was subdivided in 1945.
Lyndhurst stands at 3 London Road, Clayfield, set back from the street on a block that was reduced to 3 acres 18.8 perches when John Reid took title in September 1896. The 1945 subdivision removed the original front garden, so the terraces, parterre and tennis court Dods laid out are no longer there. The house is a private residence, not a museum, so visits are not open to the public; the roof, chimneys and verandah are best seen from London Road.
During Dods's lifetime the Lyndhurst design was published more often than any other of his domestic works, so the house became a widely reproduced model for Queensland timber housing. Its front stair is covered by an awning carried on verandah posts, with narrow covered verandah elements flanking it.
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