About
78 Derngate is the only house in England designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and the last significant domestic commission of his career. In 1916 the Northampton model-engineering manufacturer Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke — a man of pronounced modern tastes who made his money selling precision model locomotives and ships — bought a narrow Georgian terraced house near the town centre and asked Mackintosh to remodel it. Mackintosh, by then out of fashion in Glasgow and working from London, took the commission and produced interiors of startling boldness inside a wholly conventional shell. He is not believed ever to have visited the house.
The famous room is the hall-lounge on the ground floor, where Mackintosh painted the walls black and applied a stencilled frieze of triangles and chequered geometry in yellow, grey, blue and vermilion — a scheme with almost nothing in common with the white, attenuated interiors of his Glasgow years, and one that looks forward to the Art Deco of the following decade rather than back to the Arts and Crafts movement. Upstairs, the guest bedroom is decorated in emphatic black and white stripes running over the walls, ceiling and bed alike. George Bernard Shaw stayed in it; asked whether the stripes disturbed him, he is supposed to have replied that he slept with his eyes shut.
Bassett-Lowke's own restlessness is part of the story. Having commissioned Mackintosh in 1916, he went on in 1925 to commission New Ways from the German architect Peter Behrens, generally regarded as the first modernist house in England, and it stands elsewhere in Northampton still.
The house was restored and opened to the public in 2003, entered through a visitor centre in the neighbouring properties at 80 and 82 Derngate, which hold galleries, a shop and a restaurant that are free to enter. Visits to the house itself are self-guided with printed guides and audio, and guides are usually on hand.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The house is closed on Mondays and shuts for the winter after 21 December, reopening on 1 February — check before travelling outside the season.
- Last entry to the house is 16:00 even though the site stays open until 16:30, so do not leave the ticketed part until late in the afternoon.
- Ask whether a guide is on duty; guided tours cost nothing extra and add a great deal to a house whose interest is largely in the detail of the schemes.
- Give the hall-lounge more time than its size suggests — the stencilled frieze repays close looking and is easily reduced to a photograph and passed by.
- The galleries, shop and Dining Room restaurant next door are free to enter, so the site is worth a stop even without a house ticket.
- The staircases are original, steep and narrow; visitors who cannot manage them should ask at the desk about the alternative interpretation of the upper rooms.
- It is a fifteen-minute walk from Northampton station, which makes this an easy visit by train from Birmingham or London Euston.
- Look up New Ways, Bassett-Lowke's later Peter Behrens house elsewhere in Northampton, before you come — the two commissions make far more sense as a pair.
Highlights
The Hall-Lounge
Mackintosh painted the walls of the ground-floor hall-lounge black and applied a stencilled frieze of triangles and chequerwork in yellow, grey, blue and vermilion, producing a room with almost nothing in common with the pale, attenuated interiors that made his reputation in Glasgow. The effect in so small a space is startling, and the geometry points forward to the Art Deco of the 1920s rather than back to the Arts and Crafts movement he had grown out of.
It is the single most photographed interior in the house and the reason most visitors come.
The Striped Guest Bedroom
The first-floor guest bedroom is decorated in emphatic black and white stripes that run across walls, ceiling, bed and furniture without pause, giving the room an intensity that is genuinely difficult to be neutral about. George Bernard Shaw stayed in it as Bassett-Lowke's guest, and the anecdote attached to the room — that when asked whether the decoration disturbed his sleep he replied that he slept with his eyes shut — has been repeated ever since.
It survives as one of the boldest domestic interiors of its date anywhere in Britain.
Mackintosh's Only English House
Charles Rennie Mackintosh built almost his entire body of work in and around Glasgow, and 78 Derngate is the only house in England he designed. It is also his last significant domestic commission: by 1916 his practice had collapsed, he had left Glasgow, and he was working from London on whatever came.
Understanding that context changes how the interiors read, because this is not a young architect's confident statement but a late, compressed, uncompromising piece of work made in reduced circumstances for a client who was willing to let him do as he liked.
Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke
The client is as interesting as the architect. Bassett-Lowke made his fortune manufacturing precision model railways and ships in Northampton, and he applied the same appetite for modernity to his own life, commissioning Mackintosh in 1916 and then, in 1925, the German architect Peter Behrens for New Ways, generally reckoned the first modernist house in England and still standing elsewhere in the town.
That a provincial manufacturer twice went to the very edge of contemporary architecture, in a period when English domestic taste was overwhelmingly conservative, is remarkable, and the house interprets him properly.
Collections
78 Derngate is a narrow Georgian terraced house in central Northampton remodelled in 1916-17 by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for the model-engineering manufacturer Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke, and the only house in England Mackintosh designed. The restored interiors include the black-walled hall-lounge with its stencilled geometric frieze in yellow, grey, blue and vermilion, and the first-floor guest bedroom decorated throughout in black and white stripes, together with furniture designed for the house, some original and some reproduced to Mackintosh's drawings.
The house was restored and opened to the public in 2003.
Adjoining properties at 80 and 82 Derngate form a free visitor centre with changing exhibition galleries covering design, architecture and Bassett-Lowke's later commission of New Ways from Peter Behrens, a shop and a restaurant.
The Mackintosh House
The restored 1916-17 interiors, including the hall-lounge, the striped guest bedroom and the designed furniture.
Bassett-Lowke and Modern Design
Visitor centre displays on the client, his model-engineering business and his later commission of New Ways from Peter Behrens.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.