High Cross Hous - William Curry House

High Cross House was com­ple­ted in 1932 as the home for the first head­mas­ter of Dar­ting­ton Hall School, Wil­liam Burn­lee Curry. The house was de­si­gned by the Swiss-American ar­chi­tect Wil­liam Le­scaze and is re­gar­ded as one of his most im­portant and suc­cess­ful com­mis­si­ons. Built by Sta­ver­ton Buil­ders (then a de­part­ment of The Dar­ting­ton Hall Trust) it dis­plays much of the ar­chi­tec­tu­ral vo­ca­bu­lary ty­pi­cal of Lescaze – the two rec­tili­near blocks joi­ned by a cur­ved form and bold use of co­lour (both in­side and out). A su­perb ex­ample of In­ter­na­tio­nal Mo­der­nism, High Cross House was res­to­red and re­o­pened in 1995 as a home to The Dar­ting­ton Hall Trust Collec­tion and Ar­chive. The Collec­tion, which had ori­gi­nally been that of the Elm­hirsts, in­clu­des Stu­dio Ce­ra­mics and early Chi­nese and Ko­rean ce­ra­mics (which were bought on the ad­vice of Ber­nard Leach). Pot­ters re­pre­sen­ted in­clude Ber­nard and David Leach, Shoji Ha­mada, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper as well as Jane Fox-Strangways and Ma­ri­anne de Trey. Also in­clu­ded are si­gni­fi­cant pain­tings by Ben Ni­chol­son, Al­fred Wal­lis, Wi­ni­f­red Ni­chol­son and Chris­to­pher Wood. In the 1930s and early 1940s the Dar­ting­ton Hall es­tate was home to the ar­tists Eli­sa­beth and Cecil Col­lins and Mark Tobey and they are stron­gly re­pre­sen­ted in the Collec­tion.