Munnings Art Museum Dedham plans for garden room renewal

The grade II listed Munnings Art Museum, in Dedham, was the home of Sir Alfred Munnings and holds the largest collection of his work.

A planning application has been submitted in the hope of building a timber garden room following the demolition of an existing derelict building.

Talented- one of Sir Alfred Munnings art pieces (Image: Munnings Art Museum)

The plans says the “garden room has become dilapidated, roof, fenestration throughout and brickwork is unsound and unsafe.”

An outside wall of the garden room contains engraved sketches in the render, drawn by Munnings in 1945.

He is remembered as one of England’s finest painters of horses and the sketches show multiple horses drawn on the buttercream-coloured wall.

The existing painted brickwork walls and white painted timber windows could be replaced by a like-for-like comparison.

The room would have a glass roof with overlapping panes and a rendered wall with Munnings' sketches on it.

Listed- view of the front of Castle House (Image: Google)

The outside brick would be painted in buttercream and the lower brick would be painted black.

Castle House, on Castle Hill, has a lifespan of around 500 years and the garden room is believed to have been added to the property sometime between 1898 and 1919.

In the planning application, it is shown to be covered in protective sheeting “due to its poor state of repair”.

The application says: “The garden room is in a bad state of repair, the structure has decayed so much that it has been closed on health and safety grounds for several years.

“There is damp throughout, causing rotten timber members to the roof and windows, glass roof panels have broken and been removed, brickwork to the dwarf wall has been significantly degraded, shows excessive brickwork spalling and has numerous significant cracks making it structurally unsound.”

Colchester Council will rule on the application.