Tollgate Cottage,

Chorleywood

formerly in Rickmansworth

  

Sir George Alexander (actor manager) and his wide Florence

click picture for large image

  

Mrs Florence Alexander and Sir George Alexander in their home in Tollgate Cottage, Chorley Wood.

The card was posted in 1911 - which was the year he was knighted.

 

George Alexander Gibb Samson was born in Reading in 1858 and became an actor under the name George Alexander, making his London debut  in 1881. He became an actor manager at St James's Theatre where he produced Oscar Wilde's plays Lady Windermere's Fan in 1892 and The Importance of being Earnest in 1895.

 

He built Tollgate cottage in 1887 and died there in 1918

Wikipedia Entry.
 

61. Tollgate Cottage was built in 1887 and for a time was the home of Sir George and Lady Alexander. He was a theatrical producer and presented many of Oscar Wilde's plays. The great architect Edwin Lutyens [see below] built them a new house nearby - The Court.

Rickmansworth & Chorleywood in old picture postcards

Michael Edwards R.I.B.A. (roysted @t btinternet.com)  writes: Your web site refers to Edwin Lutyens having designed a house called  The Court for Sir George and Lady Alexander but you may find that the house was actually designed by a pupil of his, J.D. Coleridge and  perhaps  in 1906/7 as was the very similar house near Godalming in Surrey called Hascombe Court, recently owned by the tv/radio personlity, Chris Evans and sold on twice since then.If there are any actual Lutyens drawings for the Court, however, please let me know, and I will be happy to stand corrected. You can see the matching house near Godalming via Google Earth of course.

Chorleywood is known particularly by  architects as having the celebrated architect C. F. A. Voysey's  house, The Orchard which he built for himself, and which you might consider worth referring to on your site.

My reference comes from a book published in 1987 and I suspect that what happened was that Lutyens was asked - and passed the work to a pupil.