Nashdom

Nashdom, also known as Nashdom Abbey, is a former country house and former Anglican Benedictine abbey in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England. Designed in Neo-Georgian style by architect Edwin Lutyens, it is a Grade II* listed building. It was converted into apartments in 1997. The gardens are Grade II listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

The name Nashdom is romanised Russian (Russian: Наш дом, IPA: [naʂ dom]), meaning "our home". Lutyens' clients were Prince and Princess Dolgorouki. Prince Alexis, a son of Prince Serge Dolgorouki, was formerly the chamberlain in the Russian court. In 1898 he married Frances, the only daughter and heiress of the Scottish shipping magnate Fleetwood Pellew Wilson, of Wappenham Manor, Northamptonshire. The couple's British residences included Braemar Castle, Aberdeenshire, and a house in Upper Grosvenor Street, London.

The Princess wanted an additional residence, for royal guests and house parties. Lutyens visited the site in July 1905, thinking it beautiful but a very difficult one for the Princess's ideal house, which he thought would cost £20,000. Her initial budget was only £6,000, and they finally agreed on a design costing £15,000. Sources differ on the house's completion date, ranging from 1908, to 1911.

The Prince died, aged 68, in June 1915. Thereafter, the Princess lived in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France, where she died in August 1919, aged 69. In her will, she left Nashdom for the use of the Dolgorouki family, under the stewardship of Serge Alexandrovitch Dolgorouki, aided by her executor, Herbert Brisbane Ewart.

Lutyens built the house in Neo-Georgian style, using whitewashed brick. It is one of his earliest completely neoclassical buildings. To accommodate the steeply sloping site, he built a basement level under the southwest half of the house.

The northwest, entrance front had an urban appearance, built tight against the road. Massive and austerely neoclassical, it had at its centre a Doric colonnade giving into the entrance porch, directly beyond which was, not the main entrance door, but access via a wrought iron gate into a semicircular courtyard. Instead, the main door was inside the porch on the left, giving access to the entrance hall. A door in the porch on the right gave access to the service quarters.

The entrance hall contained two staircases. The main one, straight ahead from the door and 12 feet (3.7 m) wide, led up to the Big Room, the main room for entertaining. A second staircase, at right angles to the first and 8 feet (2.4 m) wide, led towards the suite of rooms on the garden front, via a grand landing. The landing had a wind dial on the wall, showing the wind direction superimposed on a local map. It was connected to a weathervane on the roof.

The southeast, garden front was much less severe than the entrance front, and has been called one of the most unusual facades of any Georgian house. Lutyens made extensive use of green-shuttered sash windows, spaced exceptionally close together. Along the garden front, starting from the eastern end, were a loggia, the Big Room, a circular drawing room fronted by a broad bow window, a glass-domed hall known as the Winter Garden, a dining room fronted by another bow window, and a smoking room. The bow windows continued up the facade, and the circular drawing room was surmounted by a circular bedroom. There was a semicircular dip in the centre of the facade, probably in order to let light into the glass dome.