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Surrey Archaeological Society
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Of special interest in the local history of building and architecture are several experimental Surrey buildings by the renowned architect, Clough Williams-Ellis, famous for his achievements over a span of more than 70 years and especially known to the general public for Portmeirion in North Wales. The earliest of these local houses won a prize offered by the Spectator magazine in 1914 for a building to cost no more than £100. The Spectator's editor, Mr. J St Loe Strachey, who was also High Sheriff of Surrey and who lived in what is now the Newlands Corner Hotel, offered the prize for a model cottage built at low cost to ease the problems of working class housing, especially that of the agricultural labourers. Ellis won the prize and also Amabel, Strachey's daughter, for his wife as well. His wooden house at Merrow Common, Guildford, cost about 100 guineas to build and is still known as Model Cottage (TQ 025 5 17). Subsequently three further cottages were erected on this site to his design but of more conventional materials; only two of the four still stand, including the original.