Blake and the revival of
building in the 1860's
The involvement of Honywood, Harrison and
Cobb as investors in the development of Notting
Hill was probably prompted by the growing
revival of demand for houses there, (ref. 222) several
more of Blake's at last finding purchasers. In
1860 he also sold the land on the south side of
Ladbroke Gardens and in the northern half of
Stanley Crescent, both to Ebenezer Howard, a
poultry salesman at Leadenhall Market, (ref. 223) and it
has already been mentioned that in 1861 the land
in Kensington Park Road to the north of St.
Peter's Church was also sold. Some of the mortgages were redeemed by Blake with the proceeds
of these sales, while several others were transferred to Honywood, Harrison and Cobb, who by
1863 held a portfolio with a nominal value of
£52,000, but on which only £33,500 was 'really
due'. Other debts amounted to £12,500, bringing
the total up to £46,000. By July 1863 he had
achieved such a strong financial position that he
was able to give all his remaining mortgagees
(other than Honywood, Harrison and Cobb) the
option of accepting either a reduction in the rate
of interest from five per cent to four and a half
per cent, or repayment of their loans. The crisis
was over, (ref. 3) and in this year he was able to vacate
No. 21 Stanley Gardens and make his home once
more in one of the best houses on his estate, at
No. 2 Stanley Crescent. (ref. 144)
This dramatic recovery had been made possible
by a revival in demand for houses. The total
volume of building in Kensington had begun to
grow again, very slightly, as early as 1859, and
this growth continued almost without interruption until it reached a peak in 1868. This upsurge
had enabled Blake to start in 1860 to dispose
advantageously of his ground to the west of
Ladbroke Grove which he had repurchased from
Dr. Walker in 1856. Most of the land was
granted on building leases, the principal undertaker
being Charles Chambers, variously described as a
timber merchant or an engineer, who took all
of the south side of Blenheim Crescent and part
of the north side as well. Other undeveloped land
was sold freehold. As building proceeded on the
leased portions Blake bought the improved ground
rents from the lessees, and subsequently sold the
property outright to investors, usually private
individuals, but including the governors of
Middlesex Hospital. In 1863 he obtained over
£9,000 from such sales, and in 1865–6 almost as
much again. After these sales this part of the
estate was at midsummer 1867 still yielding him
a rental of £670 per annum. By 1868, when
building was virtually complete there, he had
sold all his remaining interests in this area to the
west of Ladbroke Grove, his total receipts from
sales between 1863 and 1867 being well over
£32,000 (the amounts received were not always
recorded). He still retained the bulk of his
property in the Stanley Gardens and Crescent
area. (ref. 3)
Blake's speculations on the Ladbroke estate
were now over, for he had already embarked on
far more extensive operations on the neighbouring
Portobello and St. Quintin estates to the north.
In the mid 1860's it was almost impossible to
build houses fast enough in Notting Dale, for an
entirely new element had been introduced into
the situation there by the opening in 1864 of the
Hammersmith and City Railway. This was the
first of the feeder lines to be connected to the
Metropolitan Railway, the first underground
railway in the world, which had been opened
between Paddington and Farringdon Street in
January 1863. The Hammersmith and City line
extended from its western terminus at Hammersmith through Shepherd's Bush and Notting Dale
(where there was a station at Ladbroke Grove)
to its junction with the Great Western Railway
at Westbourne Park, and there was also a connexion with the hitherto moribund West London
line, built in 1844 from Willesden to West
Kensington near the modern Olympia. With a
half-hourly service it was now possible for residdents in West and North Kensington to reach the
City in a matter of minutes. (ref. 224)
Blake himself and two other of the largest
speculators in Notting Dale (James Whitchurch
and Stephen Phillips) had all become members of
the provisional committee of the Hammersmith,
Paddington and City Junction Railway in 1861,
and Blake at any rate was quick to exploit the
opportunity of the moment. In November 1862
he contracted with the Misses Talbot to buy some
130 acres of their land for £107,500, and in
December 1864 he agreed with Colonel Matthew
St. Quintin to take more land on building lease
the first of a series of such agreements. The new
railway traversed both these estates, and Blake's
speculations there (which are described in Chapter
XII) occupied him for the rest of his life. In May
1863 the net annual rental of his property on the
Ladbroke estate amounted to £3,535, mostly
derived from the Stanley Gardens and Crescent
houses, and he was therefore able to borrow
freely through Honywood, Harrison and Cobb
for the financing of these new operations. (ref. 3)
Development by Pocock and Penson
in Kensington Park Road area
Blake was indeed the biggest and most successful
speculator in nineteenth-century Notting Hill
and Dale, and through the survival of a large
quantity of his personal papers his career can be
traced in some detail. But the normal complexities
and confusions of Victorian estate development,
and the jerky progress which it made in response
to the constantly fluctuating national economic
situation, provided endless scope for lesser
speculators. Each of these had his own modus
operandi, suited to his own requirements and to
the infinitely various circumstances of time and
place. One such was Thomas Pocock, previously
mentioned as an attorney of Bartholomew Close
in the City, whose activities on the Ladbroke
estate (not always very clear, due to limited evidence) extended over more than twenty years.
Unlike Blake he evidently had no great financial
resources of his own, and he therefore often acted
in association with a wealthy backer who wished
to invest without being himself actively involved in
estate business. But he did also buy and sell land
on his own account, take building leases and
perhaps build houses by contract—all risky but
potentially profitable activities in the huggermugger situations created by the failures of
Jacob Connop in 1845 and of D. A. Ramsay
and Dr. Walker in 1854–5.
Pocock had first become involved on the Ladbroke estate in the latter part of 1846. At that
time James Weller Ladbroke was still alive, but
his heir, Felix Ladbroke, in confident expectation
of his cousin's early demise, was already making
arrangements for the sale of part of the estate as
soon as circumstances would permit. In December
1846, accordingly, he contracted that as soon as
J. W. Ladbroke died he would sell some thirty
acres of ground to Pocock for £9,050 (equivalent
to approximately £300 per acre). Pocock, of
course, did not possess the resources to make this
purchase himself, but by the time of J. W. Ladbroke's death on 16 March 1847 he had found
a buyer, and on 29 March the freehold of twentysix of the thirty acres was sold to the Reverend
Brooke Edward Bridges, a Bedfordshire parson,
for £7,750, subject to the existing leasehold interest already granted by J. W. Ladbroke. The
remainder was bought by Pocock himself. (ref. 225)
In terms of the modern street names Bridges'
ground lay between Ladbroke Grove and
Portobello Road, extending from Ladbroke
Gardens on the south to Westbourne Park Road
on the north. It also included the block of ground
between Kensington Park Road, Portobello
Road, Westbourne Grove and Chepstow Villas.
Pocock's lands consisted of the sites of Nos.
38–47 (consec.) Ladbroke Square (houses then
probably in course of erection), the site of the
future Nos. 56–72 (even) Kensington Park
Road, and three acres on the north side of Westbourne Park Road, still far away from the urban
frontier and evidently a long-term investment. (ref. 226)
Most of the land bought in fee by the Reverend
B. E. Bridges had already been leased in 1846 by
J. W. Ladbroke to George Penson, a wholesale
cheesemonger of Newgate Street who had outstanding financial claims on the estate arising
from Connop's bankruptcy (see page 219).
Acting through his architect and surveyor,
Benjamin Broadbridge, Penson had at once
obtained the approval of the Westminster Commissioners of Sewers for the construction of over
a mile of sewers on his leasehold lands, (ref. 227) the
ground plan being an amplification of that prepared (probably) by John Stevens for Connop in
1842–3, and in June 1846 he was offering plots to
be let on building leases. (ref. 228)
(fn. a) But probably because
of the general decline in building little work was
actually done on the sewers, and when in September 1847 the Commissioners demanded an
explanation Pocock appeared on behalf of Bridges
(the freeholder) and, apparently, of Penson, the
leaseholder. (ref. 229) Pocock had in fact become the
agent for both parties; such sewers as Penson had
built were transferred to Pocock, (ref. 230) and thereafter
neither Bridges nor Penson took an active personal
part in the development process. It was probably
Pocock who was responsible in 1849 for the
modification of the northern end of the projected
line of Kensington Park Road, which had been
originally intended to curve north-east to a
junction with Portobello Road. The line was now
straightened, and the intended crescent joining
Kensington Park Road and Ladbroke Grove was
deleted, the whole alteration being effected by
small exchanges of land between Felix Ladbroke,
Bridges and Pocock. (ref. 231)
In 1852 and 1855 the Reverend B. E. Bridges
sold almost all of his land north of Ladbroke
Gardens and west of Kensington Park Road to
Dr. Walker, (ref. 232) while Pocock himself bought
most of Bridges' land between Kensington Park
Road and Portobello Road. This thin strip of
land, extending northward from No. 56 Kensington Park Road as far as Westbourne Park Road,
formed the nucleus of Pocock's own estate (fig.
45). On part of it he adopted the usual procedure
of granting building leases—at Nos. 115–175
(odd) Portobello Road, for instance—but on
parts of the more valuable frontage to Kensington
Park Road he seems to have organized the building himself, (ref. 233) perhaps by contract, as at Nos.
56–74 and 126–182 (even) Kensington Park
Road (Plate 67e), and at Nos. 54–62 (even) and
35–41 (odd) Chepstow Villas, all in 1850–3.
This programme was financed in a number of
ways, of which outright sale of undeveloped pieces
of land to other speculators was probably the
simplest. In 1853 Pocock sold two strips of land
between Kensington Park Road and Portobello
Road (now the eastern extremities of Elgin and
Blenheim Crescents) to Dr. Walker (ref. 234) to enable
Walker to link the street layout of his lands to
the west on the Ladbroke estate with those to the
east on the Portobello estate. Two years later he
sold the ground on the east side of Kensington
Park Road between Chepstow Villas and Westbourne Grove to Blake. (ref. 235) He also sold improved
ground rents in Portobello Road, (ref. 236) while Nos.
56–72 Kensington Park Road were built in
association with another solicitor, John Day of
Red Lion Square. In 1864 he obtained a loan of
£4,300 at five per cent from the London Assurance Corporation, on the security of thirteen
houses in Lansdowne Road. (ref. 237) But his greatest
single source of capital was Penson, the City
cheesemonger, to whom he had mortgaged some
of his houses in Ladbroke Square as early as
1848. (ref. 238) Penson himself lived at No. 41 Ladbroke
Square from 1851 to 1859, when his increasing
prosperity—he now styled himself a provision
merchant—enabled him to move to the grander
milieu first of Westbourne Terrace and then of
Connaught Place, both in Paddington. In the
1860's Penson converted his business into a
limited liability company, of which he was himself the managing director; (ref. 64) he frequently acted
as Pocock's mortgagee or business associate, (ref. 239)
and as his personal estate was valued after his
death in 1879 (aged seventy) at around £120,000
he was clearly a valuable ally for a speculator such
as Pocock. (ref. 240)
In addition to his activities in the area between
Kensington Park Road and Portobello Road
Pocock also speculated further west. In 1846 he
contracted to buy thirty-three acres of leasehold
land to the north of Lansdowne Rise from Richard
Roy at £800 per acre, but he did in the event only
purchase five acres, which he subsequently sold
undeveloped to Blake. (ref. 241) In the early 1850's he
took building leases from Stephen Phillips for
some thirty houses on the west side of Clarendon
Road, and when Dr. Walker started to grant
leases in 1852 on the lands to the west of Ladbroke
Grove which (as we have already seen) he had
recently acquired from Blake, Pocock was among
the lessees (for Nos. 61–75 odd Lansdowne
Road). (ref. 242)
The aftermath of unsuccessful
speculations
The collapse of Dr. Walker's enterprises presented speculators like Pocock or Richard Roy
with a wide field of opportunity for many years.
For instance, both Pocock and Roy bought halffinished houses in Lansdowne Road and Elgin
Crescent from Dr. Walker's trustees. Pocock
also lent money on mortgage on property there,
financing these activities by transferring the
mortgages to clients with money to invest, or to
Penson. (ref. 243) By 1860, when demand for houses
was reviving, Roy was selling or leasing derelict
property in Lansdowne Road (the original
leases granted by Dr. Walker in 1852 having
evidently been cancelled), (ref. 244) and in some cases
these new building lessees mortgaged to Pocock. (ref. 245)
In Lansdowne Crescent (Nos. 19–38 consec.)
Stephen Phillips was another speculator who
profited from Dr. Walker's misfortunes, by buying ground from him cheaply in 1857, (ref. 246) and
finding a building lessee during the building
boom of the early 1860's.
The depressing aspect of this part of the Ladbroke estate was frequently mentioned in The
Building News at this time. In 1857 it stated that
'On some parts of the Notting-hill estates a large
number of houses have been erected; many of
them are now fit for occupation, others are in
progress, whilst on other portions numerous
buildings appear to have remained some time in
carcase only, and abandoned in various stages of
advancement, apparently for want of funds to
complete them.' (ref. 247) Two years later there were
eighteen first-class houses 'fast hastening to decay
for want of being finished' in Ladbroke Gardens,
which was popularly known as the 'Goodwin
Sands' or (as we have already seen) 'Coffin-row', (ref. 248)
and where Roy had been heavily involved. By
1860, however, 'Little patches of new work'
were beginning to 'appear here and there amidst
the desert of dilapidated structures and decaying
carcases. When the whole are finished there will
be some chance of an adequate return for a portion of the money invested, but till that consummation is arrived at, there are few, we imagine,
who would care to dwell in that dreary desolation,
with the wind howling and vagrants prowling in
the speculative warnings around them.' (ref. 249)
In such a confused situation it has often proved
impossible to discover the names of the building
lessees of many houses, and even when this has
been feasible it has often been impossible to
assess the amount of work done before building
was suspended. The building histories of Ladbroke
Gardens, Elgin Crescent and the northern part
of Lansdowne Road, all within Dr. Walker's illfated estate, are particularly perplexing. In Ladbroke Gardens Richard Roy bought the land on
the north side from Dr. Walker and granted
building leases in 1852, (ref. 250) but little if any work
was done for some years, although (as we have
already seen) Thomas Allom made designs for the
houses here. In 1858 seventeen of the twentythree sites or carcases in the range were acquired
by Ebenezer Howard, the poultry salesman of
Leadenhall Market, (ref. 251) and under his auspices
William Parratt, builder, and John Faulkner of
Finchley New Road, surveyor, worked until
Parratt's death in 1861. (ref. 252) Thereafter William
Wheeler, the builder working opposite at Nos.
14–23 (consec.) Stanley Crescent at this time,
appears in the many legal transactions affecting
the houses, (ref. 253) all of which were finished by
1866. (ref. 144) With such a complex building history,
extending over fourteen years, it is remarkable
that Allom's costly designs were never abandoned
in favour of something cheaper.
On the south side of Ladbroke Gardens building operations were even more long-delayed. In
1858 Howard leased the site of Nos. 24–33
(consec.) from Blake, removed the carcases of the
houses already there (probably the coffins of
'Coffin-row') and after buying the freehold from
Blake, sold the property to Penson. A dispute
then arose about the southern boundary of the
land, and Pocock, to whom Penson had in turn
sold, threatened to build a row of workmen's
model lodging-houses, the site being (as he
claimed) too narrow for the erection of good
quality houses. (ref. 254) Three of the six-storey houses
ultimately built here were still in course of
erection in 1873. (ref. 255)
In Elgin Crescent William Sim, builder and
architect, was probably responsible for the design
of many of the houses west of Ladbroke Grove.
In 1852 Dr. Walker granted him building leases
for Nos. 69–115 (odd), and in 1855 he exhibited
at the Royal Academy 'A view of Elgin Crescent,
Kensington Park, from the designs and now in
progress of completion under the superintendence
of W. Sim'. (ref. 256) An undated printed estate plan
(Plate 57) advertising 'Family Residences' in
Elgin Crescent, to be let at rents from £60 to
£80 per annum and requesting potential purchasers to apply to Mr. Sim 'on the Premises'
shows that he concerned himself in the sale as
well as the design and construction of Nos.
69–115. (ref. 3) But he also acted as surveyor to D. A.
Ramsay, the building lessee of Nos. 117–145
(odd), (ref. 257) and probably also for H. M. Ramsay, the
lessee of Nos. 58–120 (even). He was still working in Elgin Crescent as an architect in 1858, when
he invited tenders for the completion of ten houses
there. (ref. 258) To the east of Ladbroke Grove Thomas
Pocock seems to have been responsible in the mid
1860's for much of the building in Elgin Crescent
on the south side. (ref. 259)
Few of the houses built in these confused
circumstances call for comment. In the northern,
curved, part of Lansdowne Road Nos. 68–102
(even) (Plate 67d) and Nos. 79–123 (odd) (fig.
61) form sequences of three-storeyed stucco houses
in which Dutch gables alternating with pierced
parapets are employed over groups of roundheaded windows set in complicated rhythms.
Together with the three-sided bay windows in the
ground storey and strangely detailed doorways
with shallow hoods on consoles over half round
arches, these elements form an amalgam which it
is hard to take seriously and which is unlike
anything else in Kensington. No. 77 Lansdowne
Road, a three-storey stucco-fronted house at the
end of a long terrace-range, has a two-storey
segmental bay and stucco enrichments reminiscent of Allom's work in Kensington Park Gardens, but the documentary evidence shows that
after being leased to Ramsay in 1852, the carcase
was sold in 1856 to Thomas Allason, junior,
architect. (ref. 260) On the outer side of Lansdowne
Crescent the four-storey range numbered 19–38
(consec.) was leased to Henry Wyatt in 1860–2, (ref. 261) and presents a fine succession of segmental
bow fronts of a pattern almost identical with
other houses attributed to George Wyatt in
Prince's Square, Paddington (Plate 67b).
Further north Elgin Crescent, dating chiefly
from the 1850's, has some repose and dignity in
its architectural treatment. Semi-circular headed
doorways and windows generally prevail, and
there is some enrichment of the stucco, especially
at Nos. 58–120 (even) (Plate 67c). The modest
and well-proportioned houses at Nos. 117–145
(odd) have linked doorways as projecting features,
and were probably designed by William Sim.
Nos. 149–153 (odd) are also of the very simple
terrace type, and again appear to be by Sim, who
was also probably responsible for the adjacent
Nos. 68–78 (even) Clarendon Road. (ref. 262) Blenheim
and Cornwall Crescents, built in the early 1860's
in a debased classical style, demonstrate the
marked degeneration of taste which was then
beginning to take place on the remaining parts of
the Ladbroke estate.
Figure 61:
Nos. 113–117 odd Lansdowne Road, plans and elevations
This decline can also be observed in Ladbroke
Grove itself and on the lands to the east, where
the houses dating from the 1860's were in general
built in long tall terraced ranges. This type of
work may be seen at Nos. 78–94 (even) Ladbroke
Grove, probably designed by Edward Habershon
in 1861 (Plate 67f), and Nos. 111–119 (odd), by
George Drew in 1865, both at the bottom of the
north side of St. John's Hill. At the corners of
several streets leading off Ladbroke Grove this
monotony is relieved by large three- and fourstorey houses with stucco ornamentation of some
panache. Nos. 81 and 83 Ladbroke Grove, for
instance, at the south and north corners of
Lansdowne Road, form an almost symmetrical
pair, while No. 85, at the south corner of Elgin
Crescent, five windows in width, has rusticated
and vermiculated stucco at ground-storey level,
and a projecting porch extending through two
storeys. These three houses appear, however, to
date from the 1850's, as also do Nos. 60–64
(even) Ladbroke Grove, a five-storey range begun by H. M. Ramsay in 1854, where the influence of Allom's work is apparent. East of
Ladbroke Grove Arundel Gardens consists of
dull four-storey ranges, that on the north side
being faced with stucco and that on the south side
being of stock brick with coarse flamboyant
stucco enrichments. Both ranges date from the
early 1860's, and represent a marked decline
from both Allom's neighbouring houses on the
north side of Ladbroke Gardens, and from the
long three-storey range built by Thomas Pocock
on the east side of Kensington Park Road in 1852,
by which the eastward vista along Arundel
Gardens is agreeably closed.
Deaths of the principal developers
By the mid 1870's the development of the
Ladbroke estate was almost complete, and most
of the principal protagonists in the whole complicated process were already dead. Thomas
Allason, surveyor to both James Weller Ladbroke
and Felix Ladbroke, had died in 1852. Latterly
he had lived in Connaught Square, Paddington,
and at the time of his death he owned fifteen freehold houses in Clarendon and Ladbroke Roads,
plus all the twenty houses which then stood on
the site of Linden Gardens, Notting Hill (a small
detached part of the Ladbroke estate). (ref. 263) Felix
Ladbroke died in 1869. By this time he had sold
the greater part of his estate at Notting Hill (or
very possibly all of it) and also his house at
Headley in Surrey, and was living in Belgrave
Road near Victoria Station. How he had spent
the money which he had raised from his great
inheritance has not been discovered, but at the
time of his death he was clearly in relatively reduced circumstances, for his 'effects' were valued
at under £9,000, and the two small legacies
mentioned in his will were not to be paid until
after his wife's death. (ref. 264)
Dr. Walker and Thomas Pocock also died in
the same year, 1869. Dr. Walker, then aged
fifty-nine, was living in Hampstead and left a
widow and young children. He had by now sold
most or all of his lands in Kensington, but as his
financial affairs appear to have improved somewhat in the mid 1860's he was able to bequeath
his dearest possessions, the advowson of St.
Columb Major in Cornwall and the patronage of
All Saints', Notting Hill, to his eldest son. His
'effects' were valued at about £70,000, but it
may be recalled that the fortune which he had
inherited from his father in 1851 had been
estimated at £250,000. (ref. 265) Pocock, by contrast,
for whom Dr. Walker had unwittingly provided
so many opportunities, left 'effects' valued at only
about £9,000; but he was probably an entirely
self-made man. He was also unlike Dr. Walker
in having lived on the scene of his speculations,
first at No. 38 Ladbroke Square and latterly at
No. 24 Ladbroke Gardens. (ref. 266)
Blake and his erstwhile architect both died in
1872, but whereas Allom, living at Barnes, left
personal property of around £1,500, (ref. 267) that of
Blake was valued at about £35,000, and the total
value of his residuary real and personal estate was
about £120,000. The twenty-four freehold
houses which he still owned in the Stanley
Crescent and Stanley Gardens area accounted for
about one third of this amount, but most of the
rest arose from his later speculations on the
Portobello and St. Quintin estates (see Chapter
XII). His outstanding mortgage debts had fallen
to £17,155. He had spent some twenty years in
the day-to-day administration of his estates, whose
management was now taken over by his son, a
barrister, and the solicitor B. G. Lake. For most
of this period he had like Pocock lived at the
scene of his enterprises, at first at No. 24 Kensington Park Gardens (1854–9) and then at
Nos. 21 Stanley Gardens (1860–3) and 2 Stanley
Crescent. After 1868 he had lived in semiretirement at Bournemouth, where he died on
22 March 1872, aged seventy-seven. A monument (which no longer exists) was erected in St.
Peter's Church there to record his memory. (ref. 268)
Blake's former solicitor, Richard Roy, died in
the following year, 1873, aged seventy-six. He
too had lived for many years on the Ladbroke
estate, at first at No. 59 Ladbroke Grove, and
then in the years of his greatest prosperity from
1851 to 1858 at the house (now demolished) at
the south corner of Ladbroke Grove and Kensington Park Gardens, facing Blake's house. It was
probably financial difficulty which dictated his
removal, in 1858–9, down the hill to a less
exclusive address, No. 42 Clarendon Road, where
he remained for the rest of his life. His personal
papers have not survived, and little is known of
his financial circumstances. At his death his
personal estate was valued at about £16,000, but
he almost certainly still owned real property in
Notting Hill. His legal practice was continued by
his wife's brother, T. B. Cartwright, and as late
as 1910 one of her nephews was still concerned
in the administration of one of the communal
gardens on the estate. (ref. 269)
After the death in 1879 of George Penson, the
City cheesemonger, who (as we have already
seen) left a personal estate of £120,000, there
remained only one important survivor, the architect James Thomson, the progenitor of much of
the ground plan of one of the finest townscapes
in all London. He lived long enough to see the
results of his work in the hey-day of its midVictorian prosperity, but when he died at a great
age in 1883 at his house in Devonshire Street, St.
Marylebone, he left a personal fortune of only
£789. (ref. 270) Suburban building development seems,
indeed, to have been at least as fickle in its rewards as gambling had been in earlier days on the
races at the Hippodrome, where it may be that
some speculators made their first investments on
the Ladbroke estate before trying their luck and
skill in the more durable field of bricks and mortar.
The Church of St. John the Evangelist,
Ladbroke Grove
Plates 12, 33e; fig. 62
St. John's Church is the centrepiece of the Ladbroke estate. It is conspicuously sited at the top
of a high knoll, its spire being visible for several
miles to the north and west. Built of ragstone in
the Early English Gothic manner and set among
fine mature trees, it provides a notable contrast
with the Italianate stucco and stock-brick fronts
of the houses in the surrounding streets.
St. John's was the first church to be built north
of the Uxbridge road, and its district, as originally
defined in 1845, contained almost the whole of
this part of the parish as far north as Kensal
Green Cemetery, only the Norland estate
(where the building of St. James's was almost
contemporaneous) and the Potteries being excluded. The selection of its site and of its architect
were evidently the subject of much discussion
between the various developers then active on the
Ladbroke estate (see page 207), who were all
anxious to have the new church on their land.
The final decision seems to have been the result
of a compromise; Richard Roy, the solicitor in
charge of building development to the west of
Ladbroke Grove, purchased the site from his
clients and presented it to the church's trustees, (ref. 271)
while the architects were John Hargrave Stevens
and George Alexander, whose client was Jacob
Connop, at that time the developer of the lands
to the east of Ladbroke Grove.
The foundation stone was laid by Archdeacon
John Sinclair, vicar of Kensington and archdeacon of Middlesex, on 8 January 1844, and the
church was consecrated by Charles Blomfield,
Bishop of London, on 29 January 1845. (ref. 272) The
builders were Joshua Higgs, senior and junior,
who were paid £8,213. The total cost, inclusive
of architects' fees, was £10,181. About half of
this was paid for by private subscriptions, but two
loans, each of £2,000, remained outstanding for
some years, the lenders being Viscount Canning
and C. H. Blake, both of whom were also investors
in the large-scale building developments then
proceeding to the west of Ladbroke Grove. The
church provided 1,500 sittings, of which 400
were free, and a district parish was assigned in
1845. (ref. 273)
St. John's is a solid and substantially built
church of ragstone laid in neat courses, with
buttresses at the angles of all parts—a structural
precaution later found to be fully justified when,
in 1955, slight movement of the clay sub-soil
required the west front to be strengthened. The
exterior is confident and imposing, with consistent
Early English Gothic detail. At the time of
building the design evoked widespread favourable
comment. (ref. 274)
The church is cruciform in plan with a tower
and broach spire over the crossing. The tower
has three lancet openings to each face, square
pinnacles enriched with lancet panels, and
stepped buttresses at each corner. Two-light
gabled lucarnes project from the base of the spire,
to which they give added solidity of appearance.
The two-bay north and south transepts have
polygonal turrets containing staircases to the
former galleries and projecting three quarters of
the way up the east and west façades, each of
which has two lancet lights surmounted by a
round window in the gable.
The west front has two tall lancet lights with a
small quatrefoil light in the gable above. The
western half of the two-bay chancel is flanked by
square vestries, now used for other purposes. The
east façade of the chancel has three level lancet
lights beneath a pair of lancets surmounted by a
quatrefoil light in the gable and set within a
pointed arch flanked by two blind lancet panels.
Figure 62:
Church of St. John the Evangelist, Ladbroke Grove, plan
The five-day nave arcade has cylindrical
columns with boldly modelled roll-mouldings and
supports a clerestory with groups of three level
lancet lights to each bay held within an inner
arcade. The lean-to aisles are lit by single lancets
on the centre lines of the bays. The spacious
interior, now cream-washed, is dominated by the
crossing, the capitals of the piers here being
carved with naturalistic foliage. The crossing is
carried up as a lantern tower, with a wooden ceiling pierced by an octagonal skylight which is fitted
with clear glass held by leading in fish-scale patterns.
Across the west bay of the nave and aisles is a
gallery, standing at the height of the arcade
capitals. Its front is of wood, now painted cream,
and is enriched by trefoil arches and little trefoils
in the spandrels. The galleries formerly situated
in the transepts, access to which was provided
within the polygonal corner turrets previously
noted, have now been removed.
The chancel is more richly treated than the
rest of the church. The east window openings
have roll-mouldings and are filled with glass by
C. E. Kempe which replaced in 1900 a window
of 1860 to the memory of the wife of the first
incumbent, the Reverend John Philip Gell. There
is other good glass by Kempe in the two-light
window above. The rich patterned glass in the
single-lancet north and south windows of the
sanctuary is nearly contemporary with the building of the church.
The panelling behind the altar was erected
under a faculty of 1890; it was later continued
round the walls of the sanctuary, and included an
elegant sedilia. The panelling, reredos and sedilia
are of terra-cotta, in a hard neo-Perpendicular
style. The architectural portions of the reredos
were designed by (Sir) Aston Webb; the sculptures,
by Emmeline Halse, represent the Crucifixion in
the centre with seated figures on either side, very
much in the fin de siècle manner. The panels on
either side of the reredos have delicately carved
standing angels, probably also by Emmeline
Halse, but they are much less lively than the altar
composition. (ref. 275)
There are two windows by Warrington; one,
in the south aisle, was presented by the architect,
George Alexander; the other, a small light in the
west gable, is a little rose window of pretty
foliate design in bright colours.
The whole interior assumed its present appearance when the church was rearranged and
redecorated in 1955–6 by Milner and Craze.
The altar table was placed beneath the crossing, the
walls painted creamy-white, and the rich colour
of the terra-cotta fittings obscured by grey paint.
The top twenty-six feet of the spire were
rebuilt in 1957 after damage in the war of
1939–45. (ref. 276)
St. Peter's Church, Kensington Park Road
Plate 13; fig. 63
This is one of the very few Church of England
churches to be built in London after 1837 in the
classical style. It was built in 1855–7 to the
designs of Thomas Allom, the architect responsible for many of the large Italianate houses then
in course of erection in the adjacent Stanley
Gardens and Crescent and Kensington Park
Gardens, and the site for the church was presented
by Allom's client, the speculator C. H. Blake.
Situated on the east side of Kensington Park Road
and facing west down Stanley Gardens, St.
Peter's was, indeed, to be an integral and carefully
composed element in the design of Blake's estate,
and the classical idiom, however unfashionable,
was therefore the natural style to choose.
The church was built at an estimated cost of
£5,500 and provided 1,400 sittings. It was consecrated on 7 January 1857, and a district
chapelry was assigned in the same year. (ref. 277) Its
stucco façade has a bold pediment and entablature
carried on six engaged Corinthian columns (the
outer ones paired), and is flanked at the angles of
the building by quadrants behind which rise the
semi-circular staircases to the galleries. Each of
the three inner bays is pierced by a round-headed
doorway leading into the entrance vestibule, and
above the central bay rises a square tower,
adorned on each side by a clock-face and surmounted by an octagonal copper-roofed belfry.
Originally the church consisted of a seven-bay
nave and aisles with no chancel, the east end being
composed in a formal design the centrepiece of
which was a flattened arch carried on Corinthian
columns in the manner of Hawksmoor. In 1879
a one-bay apsidal chancel was added to designs by
Edmeston and Barry, the columns which had
supported the arch being incorporated into the
main arcade.
The columns of the nave arcade have gilded
Corinthian capitals and carry an entablature surmounted by a clerestory which is pierced by semicircular lunettes. At half their height the columns
also support the galleries, which are continued
across the west end and here occupy the two bays
in front of the entrance vestibule. The elegant
gallery fronts each contain three panels ornamented with the Keys of St. Peter, floral swags
and winged putti. The flat plaster ceilings of
both nave and aisles (rebuilt in 1951 under the
direction of Milner and Craze) are enriched with
framed panels, some of which contain rosettes.
Figure 63:
St. Peter's Church, Kensington Park Road, plan
The short chancel has double arches supported
on squat Corinthian columns of Torquay red
marble, the spandrels of the western arch being
ornamented with angels bearing gilded trumpets
and garlands. The ceiling has a coffered barrel
vault, the panels being also decorated with angels
and other motifs. The wall of the apse is covered
with a large mosaic version of Leonardo da Vinci's
'Last Supper', erected in 1880. Although it has
every appearance of having been added, the change
of scale from the nave being somewhat abrupt,
the chancel nevertheless provides an effectively
rich climax to the interior.
The marble altar is in the sixteenth-century
Florentine manner and is supported on graceful
columns. This and the marble dado behind were
carved in Italy to designs by the Reverend G. F.
Tarry. The alabaster and marble pulpit of 1889
has a base of polished grey marble, and its front
contains white marble bas-reliefs carved and
signed by T. Nelson Maclean. (ref. 278) The baptistry,
of 1905, in the south-west corner of the south
aisle, has a richly wrought iron screen and is
ornamented with marble and mosaic. The font
is a handsome design with bronze acanthus-leaf
rings.
In the centre of the wall of the south aisle is
a monument by M. Noble, commemorating
Frances Susanna, wife of the Reverend Francis
Holland Adams, first incumbent of the church.
It is in the Grecian manner reminiscent of the
1830's, but is actually of 1860, and consists of a
white marble portrait set on a dark grey marble
back-board.
The small semi-circular-headed window which
formerly existed within the flattened arch at the
east end contained glass which is now in the west
window under the tower. The window in the
south aisle depicting the Crucifixion is signed by
J. Arthur Dix of Berners Street, who also
designed the baptistry window erected in 1905.
The internal decoration of the church was
said in 1872 to have been 'worked out in Pompeian red', the 'Greek ornament and colouring'
being 'at once harmonious and agreeable'. (ref. 279)
St. Mark's Church, St. Mark's Road
Plate 16; fig. 64
The Church of St. Mark stands upon a site
presented to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners by
C. H. Blake, the speculator responsible for the
rapid development of this district of the Ladbroke
estate during the 1860's. At the time of its
building it stood on the edge of the built-up area,
but it was very soon surrounded by houses, and is
now sandwiched between a short terraced range
and a tall, narrow villa.
The architect of St. Mark's was E. Bassett
Keeling, and the builders were Dove Brothers,
whose contract was for £6,011, including the
font, pulpit, and altar fittings. The church was
built with funds raised by public subscription
(£5,000 of which were given by the first patron,
Miss E. F. Kaye), and provided 1,486 sittings.
It was consecrated on 27 November 1863 and a
district chapelry was assigned in the following
year. (ref. 280)
St. Mark's is in many ways similar to Bassett
Keeling's other surviving church in Kensington,
St. George's, Campden Hill, but St. Mark's has
no projecting cloistered porch, and the detail is
altogether thinner and 'spikier'. The barbaric and
emphatic quality of the design aroused both the
antagonism of the Ecclesiological Society and the
interest of the architectural journals. In November 1862 The Builder stated that the church was
to be a 'Gothic structure, in coloured bricks and
Bath stone, with a Continental touch in it', and
that it was to have a spire 130 feet in height. (ref. 281)
The dark brick exterior with stone dressings
certainly owes little to period precedent, and it was
this, perhaps, which caused The Building News
to describe St. Mark's in 1869 as 'an atrocious
specimen of coxcombry in architecture'. (ref. 282) This
verdict appears to have had some effect on subsequent opinion, for by the turn of the century
Bassett Keeling's design had already suffered considerable modification, and the church is now
only a fragment of the strange and original building which it once was.
The vertically of the asymmetrical west front
is emphasized by the steep raked buttresses, by the
tall narrow windows, and by the distinctive subdivision of the composition into four clearly
defined parts. The first of these is the façade of the
nave, an oddly flat Gothic gabled wall pierced by
small lancets. The most dominant feature of this
element is the huge panel set within a pointed
arch with banded voussoirs of black, red and white
brick. Three lancets in the panel are set under a
large quatrefoil window contained within a
circular panel. The staircase which formerly
provided access to the galleries is expressed by the
windows on the lower stage of the façade.
The second element is the south-west tower
with corner buttresses. It has three stages, is very
deeply modelled, unlike the façade of the nave,
and is surmounted by a tall, purplish-grey slated
broach spire. The base of the tower contains a
porch, and the church is entered by a double
flat-headed doorway, above which is a large
quatrefoil light within a circular panel framed by
a steeply pointed arch. In the spandrels are carved
roundels representing the emblems of the four
evangelists. The stair turret to the tower fills in
the spaces between the south-west buttresses, and
in its upper stage, the second in the tower, becomes polygonal. Above, the stone base of the
belfry stage is battered upwards, this third stage
being pierced by three level lancets enriched by
trefoil cusping. These open arches, on naturalistic
foliate capitals crowning columns behind which
are square structural piers, seem deep and sinister.
Each face of this belfry stage of the tower is
flanked by pilaster buttresses at the corners, and
harsh saw-tooth corbelling extends between them
in a horizontal band a short distance above the
line of lancets. Over this stage, steep gabled dormers with single louvred lancets are corbelled
out beyond the face of the brickwork below, and
cut upwards into the base of the slate-covered
spire.
Figure 64:
Fig. 64. St. Mark's Church, St. Mark's Road, plan
The third element of the façade is the curious
little spirelet on an octagonal base set on a square
first stage with strongly profiled buttresses; it has
the appearance of a small bell-tower, but was
apparently never used as such.
The fourth unit is the gabled porch wedged
between the base of the small tower and the main
body of the church.
An unusual feature of the original exterior was
the series of flying buttresses on either side, all
now removed. They were very angular and boney
in appearance, their skeletal effect being heightened
by the use of black and white bricks for the
voussoirs.
The impressive, even perhaps grand, and
spacious interior consists of a four-bay nave with
tall narrow aisles, wide transepts which have,
however, only a token projection beyond the
aisles, and an apsidal chancel with a vestry on one
side and a small chapel on the other. Cast-iron
columns, originally illuminated in strong polychromatic designs but now encased in concrete,
carry lofty arcades that support a clerestory pierced
with quatrefoil lights set in circular openings. The
arcades and clerestory, of stock brick, strongly
coloured with bands of black, white and red
brick and stone, provide a sharpness and rasping
individuality which is emphasized by the notched
arrises of the brick arches. The principal timbers
of the nave roof, also with notched edges, are
carried on small marble columns with naturalistic
corbels and capitals carved by J. W. Seale of
Lambeth. (ref. 283) The harsh, jagged and abrasive
motifs of the interior were continued outside in
the magpie polychromy of the flying buttresses.
The galleries were supported on beams which
spanned from the aisle walls to brackets fixed to
the iron columns, and originally extended through
the transepts, side aisles and west end of the nave.
The spacious staircases were placed at the back of
the west gallery, and over the staircases was an
upper gallery reached from the staircase in the
tower which forms an entrance porch on the
ground floor. The galleries on the north and south
sides were removed in 1896 and those on the
west in 1905. The western fenestration was
related to the stair to the gallery, and has now lost
its raison d'être. During these alterations, no
account was taken of Bassett Keeling's structural
methods, for the building was so weakened that a
general strengthening of the fabric had to be
organized by Milner and Craze in 1954–5,
which included the casing of the iron columns,
the tying back of the arcades to the aisle walls by
means of concrete beams, and the demolition of
the flying buttresses and their replacement by
sturdy stock-brick piers. (ref. 276)
In addition to these structural alterations,
Bassett Keeling's original design has also suffered
considerably from loss of colour and detail. Since
the removal of the original altar and reredos the
east end of the church has lost its architectural
focus, and is now dominated by the huge suspended Rood which was originally at St. Columb's,
Notting Hill. The new pulpit, alterations to the
chancel, and the new font, all date from 1957.
The Stations of the Cross were brought here from
St. John's, Holland Road, on the eve of the war
of 1914–18.
Monastery of the Poor Clares Colettines,
Westbourne Park Road
Plate 24a, b. Demolished
This convent was established in 1857 at the
request of Dr. Henry Manning, then Superior
of the Oblates of St. Charles. The buildings,
which were erected in 1860, are said to have
been modelled on those of the Poor Clares' convent at Bruges, which Manning had visited and
which supplied the first nuns at Notting Hill. (ref. 284)
In 1970 the convent removed to Barnet and the
buildings were demolished. The site is now (1972)
being used for the erection of flats and a day
nursery by Kensington and Chelsea Borough
Council.
The convent stood at the corner of Ladbroke
Grove and Westbourne Park Road. In 1860 the
site was described in The Building News as being
'in a dreary waste of mud and stunted trees',
where the convent shared 'the sole interest' of
this desolate district with 'Dr. Walker's melancholy church' of All Saints', then still unfinished,
and a lonely public house, now called the Elgin,
in Ladbroke Grove. A number of 'low Irish' had
settled in the vicinity, and already there had been
'a plentiful crop of Romish conversions there'. (ref. 284)
The architect of the new convent was Henry
Clutton, and the contractors were Jackson and
Shaw. (ref. 284) The buildings were economical and
austere, being generally two storeys in height, of
picked stocks with occasional bands of Staffordshire blue bricks, and with stone dressings to the
chapel gables. They were grouped round a
central cloistered court and flanked by walled
gardens.
The principal entrance was from Westbourne
Park Road, and was set in a one-storey linking
block beside the chapels, which provided the
principal element in the whole group. As the
convent was occupied by an enclosed order, it was
necessary to have two chapels, one for the nuns
and the other for visitors. Clutton arranged the
altars back to back, the movements of the celebrant's hands during Mass thus being visible to
both the nuns and the visitors.
In 1871–2 John Francis Bentley produced
plans for elaborate altars, but only the tabernacle,
with its gilt door enriched with enamel and precious stones, and the exposition throne were built
to his designs. Both sides of the throne had canopies consisting of hexagonal crocketed spirelets
rising from coronas of fleurs-de-lis supported by
two angels. The altars were to be made of alabaster
and Hopton Wood stone with marble enrichments,
and the frontals were to contain painted panels. (ref. 285)
Kensington Temple, Kensington Park Road
Formerly Horbury Congregational Chapel
Plate 28b; fig. 65
Horbury Congregational Chapel was an offshoot from the chapel in Hornton Street. It was
built in 1848–9 to designs by J. Tarring. The
builders were T. and W. Piper of Bishopsgate,
whose tender was for £3,592. (ref. 286) It continued in
Congregational use until 1935, when it became
known as Kensington Temple, Church of the
Foursquare Gospel. It is now known as Kensington Temple, Elim Pentecostal Church. (ref. 64)
The chapel is situated in a prominent position
on a wedge-shaped site at the junction of Ladbroke
and Kensington Park Roads, the entrance façade
being emphasized by the flanking twin towers
capped by octagonal spirelets. The style of the
body of the chapel is essentially early decorated
Gothic, while the towers have elements of
Norman and Early English architecture in their
details. The principal material is Kentish ragstone, with dressed stone for the quoins and
openings.
The chapel is cruciform on plan, with only a
vestigial niche to contain the pulpit. The original
gallery was erected in 1870, (ref. 287) but was subsequently replaced by the present larger one, which
is carried on cast-iron columns and is approached
by the stairs in the twin towers. The conventional sub-divisions into nave and aisles do not
exist in this chapel, but the body of the building
is four bays long, while the 'transepts' are approximately two bays wide. Architecturally, the
medieval styles are very unconvincing, while the
plan, designed not for sacramental worship but as
a preaching-house, hardly reflects the Gothic at
all.
Figure 65:
Kensington Temple, Kensington Park Road, plan
Peniel Chapel, Kensington Park Road
Plate 28c
This chapel stands on the east side of Kensington
Park Road between Blenheim and Elgin Crescents. The first chapel here was a proprietary
'iron' church, built in 1862 by the Reverend
Henry Marchmont, a clergyman of the Church
of England who conducted ritualistic services
here. (ref. 288) After the destruction of this building
by fire in 1867, (ref. 289) Marchmont began to build the
present church, but in 1871 he was declared
bankrupt (ref. 290) and the uncompleted carcase was sold
to the congregation of Presbyterians who had
hitherto met at a chapel in The Mall, Notting Hill
Gate. Under these new owners the church was
completed, and until 1919 was known as Trinity
Presbyterian Church. It is now in undenominational use. (ref. 288) It is a large building, of stock brick
with stone dressings. The style is a loosely interpreted Early English Gothic. It consists of a fourbay clerestoried nave with aisles, transepts and
a chancel, the latter now being blocked off.
There is a gallery in the south transept, which is
larger than that to the north. There is also a small
gallery at the west end of the church. The west
front is tall and gabled, with lean-to aisle walls.
There is a gable over the main door, above
which are two windows surmounted by a geometrical rose window. A small quatrefoil pierces
the gable over the rose.
Notting Hill Synagogue, Nos. 206–208
(even) Kensington Park Road
This building, originally a church meeting hall,
was purchased in 1900 by a Jewish congregation
and consecrated as a synagogue on 27 May of
that year. (ref. 291) The exterior, originally Italianate in
style, has been much altered, the gable having
been removed.
The building is constructed of rendered brickwork, with a five-bay interior. Cast-iron columns
support a gallery, which extends round three sides
of the hall, and also a modern clerestory and flat
roof, replacing the original pitched roof.
The Mercury Theatre, Ladbroke Road
This building was erected in 1851 as a school by
the Congregationalists of the adjoining Horbury
Chapel. The architect was John Tarring, (ref. 293) It
was subsequently used as a church hall and then
as a sculptor's studio to 1929 before becoming the
home of Madame Rambert's Russian School of
Dancing. After extensive alterations in 1930–1
it became known as 'Ballet Club' and was subsequently named The Mercury Theatre. It is
now occupied by the Rambert School of Ballet, (ref. 293)
but has not been used for ballet performances
since 1965.
It is built of coursed rubble, with dressed stone
door and window openings, in a free Gothic style.
Although the building has been considerably
altered, the original timber roof structure remains. The building presents a main façade to
Ladbroke Road, with a large gabled wall placed
asymmetrically and containing a large pointed
window (now partially blocked up) with a roundel
high in the gable.
Twentieth Century Theatre, No. 291
Westbourne Grove
This small theatre seating about 300 was built
in 1863, and opened as the Victoria Hall. In
1866 it was renamed the Bijou Theatre, and in
1893 the interior was somewhat altered. From
1911 to 1918 it was used as a cinema, but
reverted to a theatre and became the headquarters of first the Lena Ashwell Players, and
then the Rudolph Steiner Association, who renamed it the Twentieth Century Theatre. It
ceased to be a theatre in 1963, when the fittings
were stripped out, and it was converted to use as
an antique furniture warehouse. The auditorium
still remains substantially as originally built, and
is a rare survivor of the early rectangular hall type,
with a gallery across one end. The entrance foyer
survives, with a good moulded plaster ceiling.
Other parts, such as the bar, have been partly
reconstructed.
Electric Cinema Club,
No. 191 Portobello Road
This was built in 1905 as the Electric Theatre,
and is believed to be the second earliest purposebuilt theatre in London for the showing of films,
and the only one to survive little altered inside.
After a short spell as a cinema, it was used as a
music hall under the name Imperial Playhouse.
After long neglect it is now in use again as the
Electric Cinema Club. The interior has remained
virtually unaltered since it was built.
No. 14 Lansdowne Road: Hanover Lodge
Plate 63e, f
This house has been occupied by the same family
since 1855, and its history can be traced in
exceptional detail because one of the family,
Colonel Martin Petrie, compiled a manuscript
account of it in c. 1886. This was continued by
his descendants, one of whom, Professor Eleanora
Carus-Wilson, still lives there, and has kindly
given permission to quote from it.
On 7 and 8 March 1844 J. W. Ladbroke
leased the pair of houses then known as Nos. 7
and 8 Queen's Villas (now Nos. 14 Lansdowne
Walk and 14 Lansdowne Road respectively) (fn. b) to
the solicitor Richard Roy for ninety-six years
from Michaelmas 1843 at a ground rent of £7
for each house. (ref. 294) On 11 June 1844 Roy underleased both houses to Samuel Clothier, a marble
mason variously described as of Street, Somerset,
and of St. Pancras, who was probably a creditor
of William Reynolds, the general building undertaker for this part of the Ladbroke estate. (ref. 295) Both
houses were then still unfinished, and Clothier
covenanted to complete them within six months,
to complete the roads and footpaths in Queen's
Road (now Lansdowne Walk) and Lansdowne
Road, to paint the exterior every three and the
interior every seven years, and to insure the
building for three quarters of its value. In June
1848 Clothier sold his lease of No. 8 Queen's
Villas to Thomas Robson, marble merchant, of
Abingdon Street, Westminster, for £393, Robson
also taking over a mortgage of £550 which
Clothier had raised upon the house in 1845. The
whole price paid by Robson was thus £943. The
first occupant was Colonel Archibald Hyslop,
formerly of the Honourable East India Company
Service, who in 1851 was living here with his
wife, four young children and four servants. (ref. 296)
At Michaelmas 1855 Mrs. Louisa Macdowall
took Hanover Lodge, then known as 8 Hanover
Villas, on a short lease at a rental of £75 per
annum from Robson. In the same year Thomas
Goudie bought the freehold reversion of the house
from Felix Ladbroke.
The watercolour drawing reproduced on Plate
63e gives an extremely romanticized view of the
house in its original condition. (fn. c) It shows that the
entrance porch to Lansdowne Road projected
from the west front, and did not originally rise
above ground-storey level. It was flanked on
either side by a small 'cabinet', and in the basement
below these there was a house maid's closet
and a small scullery. A French window at firstfloor level opened on to the flat roof of the porch,
which was surrounded by a balustrade, and
beneath which was the water-cistern. All the
windows had small panes of glass secured by
glazing-bars in the traditional Georgian manner.
In January 1861 Captain (later Colonel) Martin
Petrie, Mrs. Macdowall's son-in-law, purchased
Robson's lease for £925, and at once began to
make extensive alterations. He extended the roof,
formerly hipped, to make a west gable, replaced
the small panes in the windows with plate glass
(except in the basement), drained the garden,
which had previously been very swampy, and
erected an ornamental terra-cotta vase and
pedestal. In 1863 he built an extension on the
west side, north of the porch, containing the back
kitchen in the basement and library on the
ground floor, and added label-heads and balconies
to the drawing-room windows. In 1874 he built
the bowed projection on the south side, which
extends up the full height of the house and includes a single-sheet bowed plate-glass window in
the drawing-room. On the west side he added
a small wing of the same height, which incorporated the original porch and contained a new
larder, muniment room, boudoir and dressingroom. The roof was stripped and reslated, the
whole of the water system renewed, with a new
cistern at the top of the house, and encaustic tiles
were laid in the porch and entrance path. The
total cost of the works done in this year was £622.
Gas had been supplied to the house since at
least 1855, and had certainly lit the garden room,
where there was a gaselier. In the late 1870's it
was brought up to the corridor of the first floor.
The drawing-room, however, continued to be
lit by candles until the installation of electricity in
the house in 1898. In this year the attics were
converted into a spacious nursery floor, with a
pantry, bedrooms, and a day-nursery with a
French window providing access from it to the
flat roof of the west wing.
The freehold of the house was bought by the
Petrie family in 1886. (ref. 297)
No. 85 Clarendon Road
Plate 75C
This house, known until 1919 as the Clarendon
Hotel, was built by William Reynolds under a
lease of 1846 from Richard Roy. It is a threestorey stucco-faced building standing at the south
corner of Portland Road, the front to Clarendon
Road, three windows in width, being ornamented
with pilasters. Reynolds established himself here
as a licensed victualler and was soon deeply involved in complicated mortgage arrangements
similar to those which he made during the course
of his building activities in this neighbourhood
(see page 210). In February 1848 he was declared bankrupt, and in 1850 his debts (in addition
to the mortgages) included some £1,100 to
Barclay, Perkins, the brewers, for goods delivered
to the hotel. (ref. 298) In July of this year he died, and
soon afterwards the hotel came into the possession
of David Allan Ramsay, a nurseryman who was
soon to turn builder, with disastrous results for
himself, and who was soon deep in debt to another
firm of brewers, William Reid and Company.
One of the mortgages made by Reynolds in
1847 contains a detailed list of the fittings, furniture and equipment in the hotel at that date. On
the ground floor there were four public rooms
the tap room, the parlour, the bar parlour and the
private parlour. All were heated either by a
register stove or an open fire, and none of the
floors appears to have been covered. Painted
wooden settles extended round forty-five feet of
the walls of the tap room, where there were three
iron-bound stout deal tables and two forms. In
the parlour the settles, hat rails, elbow screens
and 'capital strong well made . . . drinking table'
were all of mahogany, and there were four
Windsor chairs, four iron spittoons and a large
chimney-glass in a gilt frame. The bar parlour,
evidently a small room, had a mahogany Pembroke table, four cane-seat chairs and scarlet silk
curtains protected by a druggett and suspended
from brass rods. The private parlour was similar
but larger, with four flower-pot stands, six spittoons and thirteen Windsor chairs. The bar itself
was described as the 'capital painted and panelled
front return counter with stout metal top and
gate fitted with twelve brass spirit taps, rinsing
basin, five drawers, cupboard shelves etc., metal
top to same, double metal drawer and receiver, a
handsome seven motion Beer engine with ivory
pulls, six metal taps and one brass stop cock, metal
drainer, length of waste pipe in carved Spanish
mahogany case (by Angliss)'. There were eight
one-gallon iron-bound gilt spirit casks with brass
taps and a length of pipe to the spirit taps, while
the 'return Cabinet' of this splendid equipage, in
which were stored prodigious numbers of mugs,
bottles and miscellaneous requirements such as
dice and snuff boxes, was 'finished with a noble
cornice, carved plaster etc.'
The kitchen in the basement had an 'oven and
boiler range with supply cistern, pull out bar and
swing trivet'. The stout deal table in the middle
(with eight Windsor chairs) was surrounded by
cupboards and dressers accommodating a tremendous iron batterie de cuisine. In the beer cellar
there were three large store butts, the largest
having a capacity of 148 gallons, from which beer
was piped up to the engine in the bar above. There
was also a spirit cellar and a wash-house, the latter
containing a copper and three iron-bound tubs.
On the first floor there was a large club-room
and two bedrooms. The second floor contained
five more bedrooms and there were also two small
attics. The club-room had two register stoves 'with
Elizabethan bars', each surmounted by a large
chimney-glass. There were ten mahogany drinking tables, each six feet in length, twenty-one
Windsor chairs, and twenty-nine iron spittoons.
Most of the bedrooms had a register stove, a
painted washstand and dressing table, and a
double-rail towel horse. Those on the second floor
had Kidderminster carpets. The bedroom next
to the club-room was snugly furnished with a
drinking table and a 'Loo table on pillar and
plinth with painted baize cover'. In the best room
the bed was described as a 'Handsome 7ft. carved
and turned pillar double screwed mahogany four
post bedstead with mahogany cornice rods, brass
rings, lath bottom base slip laths'. Beneath the top
mattress or 'bed', which was of course of feathers,
was a wool mattress and beneath this a straw
palliass which rested on the laths.
All the windows throughout the house had
either Holland spring roller blinds or green
Venetian blinds, and most of the doors had
ebony knobs and finger plates. There were
altogether eleven register stoves and several open
grates, plus the boiler in the kitchen. There seems
to have been a piped cold water supply in the bar
and the kitchen, but there was none on the first
floor. The kitchen and ground-floor rooms and
also the club-room on the first floor and part of
the staircase were all lit by gas, the meter being
in the beer cellar; but none of the bedrooms had
gas, fear of accidental asphyxiation being probably
the reason. There were two water-closets, one
evidently near the lower part of the staircase and
the other in the region of the bar. This last was
indeed the hub of the whole household, for it was
in 'Front of bar' that one or more of the 'eleven
spring bells on carriages with brass pendulums,
cranks and wires' jangled periodically on the
'painted bell board and eleven painted inscriptions', to summon a servant to one of the public
rooms. None of the bedrooms had bell pulls, but
in the club-room there were four, of brass and
china, 'with cranks and wires'.
At the back of the house there was a skittle
ground and a bowling green, equipped with
benches, a sacking screen behind the skittle frame,
and a movable urinal. (ref. 299)
The census returns of 1851 show that the
publican then was James Phillips, who conducted
the hotel with the assistance of his wife, his
daughter aged twelve, one waiter, one servant
and a pot boy. There were three resident
'visitors'. (ref. 296)
The house ceased to be a hotel in 1919 and has
subsequently been used for commercial, social and
professional purposes.