CHAPTER IX - Roland Gardens
Roland Gardens and its adjacent mews, now called Roland
Way, were laid out for building in 1870 upon the site of the
Eagle Lodge estate, which had hitherto been held by
copyhold tenure of the manor of Earl's Court (fig. 43).
The developers were Charles Aldin, senior, a very
successful speculative builder with many years’ experience
of house-building in the nearby Queen's Gate Gardens
area, and his two sons, Charles and William, who took over
the business after their father's unexpected death in 1871.
The development got off to a brisk start, with more than
half the length of the road built up by 1874, but it then
faltered for several years and was not finally completed
until about 1893.
This chapter also describes the history of a small
rectangle of freehold land which was situated between part
of the Eagle Lodge estate and Old Brompton Road. This
was sometimes known as the Brompton Cottage estate,
and here in 1873–4 the Aldin brothers built six houses
called Roland Houses, none of which now survives.
The Eagle Lodge estate consisted of some five acres
held in 1651 by Francis Dyson, who also had another small
copyhold property nearby, beside the Fulham Road. These
two holdings remained in the same succession of owners
until 1823, (ref. 1) when they were both put up for sale by
auction. (ref. 2) The purchaser of the land at Fulham Road was
the architect Samuel Ware, who at once began to develop
it (sec Chapter VIII). The Eagle Lodge estate was bought
by John Gostling, esquire, who was admitted as its
customary tenant soon afterwards. (ref. 3)
The sale particulars of 1823 describe the estate as
having a ‘ truly pleasant and healthy’ situation, and as
‘ affording an opportunity rarely to be met with for erecting
two villas or continuous rows of houses.’ There was also ‘a
large Dwelling-House and various out-buildings and
Erections’. (ref. 2) Gostling appears to have lived here in
1824, (ref. 4) but by the following year he had let the house to
the engineer Samuel Brown, while he himself moved to
Highbury House in Islington. (ref. 5) When Brown took up
residence there was a very large increase in the rateable
value of the house, (ref. 4) perhaps reflecting substantial building
work, or even complete rebuilding. In this connexion it
may be significant that the house was not (so far as is
known) called Eagle Lodge before 1825. (ref. 6)
Particulars of 1841 show that Eagle Lodge stood in the
north-east corner of the estate, its north wall flush with
Old Brompton Road and its privacy protected by a high
wall which was pierced by two pairs of gates. It was a
square two-storey house with its principal entrance in the
centre of the west front, which faced a long range of
coach-houses and stables. The drawing-room and diningroom on the south front looked out over well-planted
pleasure grounds and shady gravel walks, and there was
also a large greenhouse. Upstairs there were six bedrooms. (ref. 7) No illustration of the house has been found.
Samuel Brown, a cooper by training, has been described
as the ‘ father of the gas engine’. It was during his residence
at Eagle Lodge, from 1825 to 1835, that he developed
‘the first gas engine that unquestionably did actual work
and was a mechanical success’, and in the grounds here he
set up two engines for demonstration purposes. (ref. 8) In 1830
Gostling granted him a sixty-year lease (back-dated to
1825) of both house and estate at a rack rent of £200 per
annum. In 1831 Brown mortgaged the property for
£1,000, and in 1836, soon after his departure from Eagle
Lodge, he assigned all his interest to his mortgagee, whose
executors ottered the lease for sale by auction in 1841.
The name of the purchaser is not known.
After Brown the next occupant of Eagle Lodge was
Alfred Bunn, who lived there from 1836 to 1839. (ref. 4) He was
then the sub-lessee and manager of Drury Lane Theatre,
but in 1839, when his arrears of rent on the theatre
amounted to over £12,000, he was forced to resign, and
in 1840 he was declared bankrupt. (ref. 10)
On the night of the census of 1851 Lady Wombwell,
wife of Sir George Wombwell, third baronet, was living
here with her six-year-old son, her lady's maid, six other
servants and a coachman. (ref. 11) Later occupants included
Tom Taylor, dramatist and editor of Punch, 1855–8, and
Alexander Redgrave, formerly chief government inspector
of factories, 1859–67. (ref. 4)
Meanwhile mechanical and industrial activities had not
come to an end with Brown's departure in 1835, for in
1837 a sawmill had been established in the grounds, the
first proprietors being William and Thomas Pye. The mill
stood at the western side of the estate, out of sight of Eagle
Lodge itself, upon a long strip of land between Thistle
Grow and the modern Roland Way which is now occupied
by a garage. In addition to the mill itself, which contained a
fifteen-horse-power steam-engine and other machinery,
there was a dwelling-house, counting-house, smithy, and
cart sheds and stables. Under a sub-lease of 1839 Messrs.
Pye also held all the southern half of the estate, now
described as a paddock, the pleasure grounds of Eagle-Lodge being thereby much reduced in size. (ref. 12)
The sawmill closed in 1855. (ref. 4) In 1860 John W. Roberts
converted the mill building into a ‘ racket court’, and in the
census of 1861 he described himself as ‘proprietor of the
West London Cricket Ground’, which now occupied the
whole of the paddock in the southern part of the estate. At
about the same time the grounds of Eagle Lodge were still
further diminished by the formation of a bowling green
near the racket court. (ref. 13) In 1865 Roberts was succeeded by
F. Jones, under whose management this little recreational
centre appears to have continued until the building of
Roland Gardens began in 1870. (ref. 4)
The half-acre rectangle of freehold land situated
between the north-west part of the Eagle Lodge estate and
Old Brompton Road has its own separate history. At the
beginning of the eighteenth century it was one of several
scattered properties in Kensington owned by Henry
Hassard (or Hazard), who died in 1706. (ref. 14) At about that
time a dwelling called Brompton House stood here, and
by 1718 this had been divided into three separate messuages. (ref. 15) Hassard's property in Kensington
descended through his daughter to the Reynell family (ref. 16)
and was subsequently acquired by Isaac and Thomas
Preston (ref. 17) (see page 23), who in 1748 sold Brompton
House to Joseph Colebourne of Exeter Street Strand, a
shoemaker. One part of the building was then used as
a public house called the Red Lion (ref. 18) At some stage,
probably towards the end of the eighteenth century,
Brompton House was pulled down and the dwelling later
called Brompton Cottage built on the site. The latter was
centrally placed in its well-planted grounds, which included a hot-house, greenhouse and gardener's cottage.
For some years before 1818 it was occupied by a doctor of
medicine. (ref. 19) In 1838 it was bought by Hugh Stark, (ref. 20) later
clerk and assistant secretary of the Board of Control. (ref. 21)
Previously he had lived from 1819 to 1838 at a house in
Thistle Grove (now No.58 Drayton Gardens), of which he
had been the first occupant. He remained at Brompton
Cottage until his death in 1857. (ref. 22)
By the mid 1860's the Eagle Lodge and Brompton
Cottage estates had become virtually an island of undeveloped land surrounded by the advancing tide of bricks
and mortar; and during the great flood of building which
then extended throughout London, speculators began to
interest themselves in its future. After the death in 1857 of
Hugh Stark his administrators sold his little estate in 1864
to James Waller, an associate of the redoubtable builder
and developer Charles Freake. (ref. 23) from whose leaseholdings
on the Smith's Charity estate to the east it was separated only
by the grounds of Eagle Lodge. Three months later Waller
reconveyed the property to Freake. (ref. 24)
It seems probable that Freake also intended to acquire
the larger Eagle Lodge estate, which would have brought
nearly all the land on the south side of Old Brompton
Road as far west as Thistle Grove within his control. But
events turned out differently for after the death in 1865 of
William Gostling (who in 1842 had succeeded his father
John Gostling as the copyhold owner (ref. 25) ) the Eagle Lodge
estate was sold in November 1869 by the representatives of
the Gostling family to Thomas Henry Scarborough, a
solicitor of Spring Gardens, Westminster, who seems to
have been speculating on his own account. (ref. 26) Soon afterwards Scarborough was negotiating with Charles
Aldin, who like Freake was one of the great moguls of the
Victorian building world in South Kensington, and by July
1870 the future development of the Eagle Lodge estate
had been substantially determined.
Figure 43:
Roland Gardens. Site plan based of the Ordnance
Survey of 1949–63, and plans, elevation and detail of typical
houses (hatched of site plan) built by C. Aldin and Sons, 1871–3
This was to be Aldin's last speculation, for he died in
1871, aged fifty-one or fifty-two. His magnum opus, the
building of some two hundred large houses and almost as
many mews dwellings within the rectangle bounded by
Queen's Gate Terrace, Gloucester Road. Cromwell Road
and Queen's Gate, was now nearing completion, and
despite the adverse turn which the tide of building in
London took in 1868–9, he was probably on the lookout
for land. (ref. 27) In June 1870, accordingly, he obtained the
approval of the Metropolitan Board of Works for the
layout (substantially as later built) of the Eagle Lodge
estate, (ref. 28) and on 19 July he agreed with Scarborough to
take some two thirds of it for immediate development. (ref. 29)
By this agreement Aldin was to take ninety-nine-year
leases from Christmas 1869 of almost all the land on the
west side of Roland Gardens and the east side of Alveston
Mews (now Roland Way) at a rent of £540 per annum
commencing at midsummer 1871. For three years from
the date of the agreement he was to have the right to buy
the freehold of practically all of this land if he so wished,
and Scarborough also agreed to sell Aldin the freehold of
all the ground on the west side of Alveston Mews and of
the future sites of Nos. 47 and 49 Roland Gardens. (ref. 29) On
the same day Scarborough was admitted as copyholder of
the manor of Earl's Court, and immediately mortgaged the
estate for £15,000. (ref. 30) In December 1870 he purchased
the enfranchisement for £1,906. (ref. 31)
In January 1871 Scarborough sold the freehold of the
rest of the estate, comprising the east and south sides of
Roland Gardens, in several interspersed lots, two to D. H.
Serrell, another solicitor well versed in land speculation,
and the rest to Aldin. (ref. 32) Six months later Aldin bought
Serrell's portion, and a few days later he exercised his right
to purchase the freehold of the lands comprised in his
original agreement of 19 July 1870 with Scarborough. (ref. 33)
Thus by the end of July 1871 he had acquired the freehold
of the whole of the Eagle Lodge estate; but within less than
ten days of doing so he died at his house at Clapham Park,
leaving effects valued at about £160,000. (ref. 34)
By this time building was already in full swing. In the
layout plan which he had submitted to the Metropolitan
Board of Works in June 1870 Aldin had proposed the
street names Eagle Lodge Gardens and Mews, but the
Board had substituted the names Roland Gardens and
Alveston Mews (the latter changed to Roland Mews in
1921 and to Roland Way in 1936): (ref. 35) the reason for the
Board's choice of names is not known. By February 1871
he had constructed nearly a quarter of a mile of sewers, (ref. 36)
and by the time of his death he had by a series of
mortgages raised capital of over £13,000 on the security of
his Eagle Lodge property, much of it evidently arranged by
the solicitor D. H. Serrell. (ref. 37) In October 1871 work was
sufficiently advanced for his two sons, Charles and
William Aldin, who with W. G. Logan, the trustee of their
father's will, were carrying on the business, to request the
Kensington Vestry to erect lamp-posts for the lighting of
Roland Gardens. (ref. 38)
This first phase of building continued until the end of
1873, much of the work being no doubt directed from the
dwelling-house and office and later the works built by the
Aldins on the long strip of land between Thistle Grove and
Alveston Mews. Theirs was one of the firms singled out
for attention in the building strike of summer 1872, but it
does not seem seriously to have hampered progress. (ref. 39) By
late 1873 Nos. 2–24 (even) on the cast side of Roland
Gardens, Nos. 1–23 (odd) on the west side, and some of
the adjacent stables and coach-houses in Alveston Mews
had all been built or at least started. (ref. 40) The careful design
of these houses (Plate 69c, fig. 43) suggests the hand of a
competent architect, but who he was is not known. Built in
stock brick, they arc very different from Aldin's houses in
the Queen's Gate Gardens area, being arranged in pairs
with mirrored plans, except No. 2, a detached house.
Their three main storeys are surmounted by an over hanging cornicione
old-fashioned in style but up-to-date in
materials, being composed of cut and moulded brick with a
possible admixture of terracotta. The upper windows have
flat surrounds in a criss-cross pattern also in moulded
brickwork, and strong keystones with several patterns of
foliage caning. Stucco appears only on the doorcases and
the broadly projecting ground-floor bay windows. No
secondary staircase for servants’ use was provided, though
at the time of the census of 1881 there was an average of
nearly five domestics resident in each house. (ref. 41) In the attic
storey there was a single large top-lit room, presumably
intended as quarters for female servants. (fn. a)
Fourteen of these twenty-four houses were occupied in
1873, but the others were not all taken up until five years
later. This disappointing response may have been due to a
glut on the house market after the boom years of the
1860's; alternatively the eccentric planning whereby such
large houses enjoyed no back staircase may have put off
potential customers. Many of those house-hunters who
did become residents in this part of Roland Gardens
originally took their houses on twenty-one-year leases, but
in nearly all cases where information is available the
freeholds had by 1881 been sold by the Aldins, most of the
purchasers being the resident at the time of each sale. (ref. 43)
In 1872, when the Aldins' first phase of building in
Roland Gardens was well under way, C. J. Freake
evidently decided that the Brompton Cottage property,
which he had purchased in 1864, was no longer of any use
to him. In 1871 Brompton Cottage itself had been
occupied by one of his own employees, the architect and
surveyor Henry E. Cooper; (ref. 44) but in April 1872 Freake
sold the house and its half-acre curtilage, not (as might
have been expected) to the Aldins but to two other
important builders in South Kensington, William Corbett
and Alexander McClymont, (ref. 45) the developers of Redcliffe
Square and many of the surrounding streets. Corbett
evidently regarded this purchase as a business success, for
he celebrated it (and the conclusion of several other
favourable deals of about this time) by the gift of an
épergne to Mrs. McClymont on the occasion of her
birthday; but in June 1872 Corbett was happy to comply
with Mr. Aldin's wish that no more trees should be cut
down at Brompton Cottage, and the quite close relationship
known to exist between Corbett and Charles Aldin,
junior, suggests that Corbett and McClymont may have
been acting on behalf of the Aldins in the purchase of this
little estate. (ref. 46) At all events they sold it in May 1873 to the
Aldins, to whom it must have been a valuable acquisition
rounding off their speculation in Roland Gardens. (ref. 47)
Brompton Cottage provided the Aldins with the site for
another six houses in essentially the same style as those
already built in Roland Gardens, but here all joined
together in a single clumsy block and having ungainly
dormer windows instead of top-lit attics. Four of the
houses had their entrances in Old Brompton Road and two
in Roland Gardens, the whole block being known as
Roland Houses and independently numbered 1 to 6. All
six houses were said to be ‘in course of erection’ in August
1873, when the Aldins mortgaged the whole site to the
architect and surveyor, George Pownall, (ref. 48) and one house
at least was ready to be let to its first occupant, an official at
the Foreign Office, in October 1874. Tenants had been
found for all the other five before the end of 1878. (ref. 49)
The Aldins did not start to build any more houses
during the years 1874–7, but in 1878 work on three, Nos.
25–29 (odd) Roland Gardens, was begun. (ref. 50) Of these,
only No. 25 was in occupation by the time of the census
of 1881, the returns for which therefore relate only to Nos.
1–25 and 2–24 Roland Gardens, 1–6 Roland Houses
and most of the coach-houses and stables in Alveston
Mews. Twenty-one of these houses were in substantially
normal occupation on the night of the census, and their
heads of household included two major-generals, two civil
engineers, and one East India broker, shipowner,
accountant, wine merchant and lime merchant. There
were also five female heads of household, all living on
income from dividends, annuities or landed property. The
average number of residents in each house was just over
nine, of whom (as previously mentioned) nearly five were
servants. Inhabitants of note included Philip Frederick
Rose, son of the founder of Brompton Hospital, later
second baronet (at No. 6 Roland Gardens), George
Willoughby Hemans, civil engineer (at No. 11), and Oliver
Ormerod Walker, M.P. for Salford 1877–80 (at No. 22).
In Alveston Mews all the occupied premises were
inhabited by coachmen and their families except No. 40,
where there was an engine driver. (ref. 51)
During the boom years in metropolitan house-building
in the mid 1870's the Aldins' energies were diverted to an
altogether unexpected project—the construction of a rink
for the current craze of roller-skating upon (approximately) the sites later occupied by Nos. 40–46 and 37–49
Roland Gardens (see Plate 71b). An open-air rink was
opened on 22 April 1876, followed a few months later by
a covered rink and ancillary buildings designed by Thomas
W. Cutler, architect (whose later works included the
Kursaal at Ramsgate and a huge hotel at Folkestone). In
October The Kensington News welcomed ‘the erection of a
handsome and commodious covered building’, which was
open at stated times and days either to subscribers and
invited guests or to the general public. Facilities included
a ‘well lighted warm and comfortable’ ladies’ room,
reading room and smoking room; a band played under the
direction of the organist of St. Stephen's, Gloucester
Road; and such was ‘ the careful supervision exercised that,
on the public, as well as on members’ days, ladies may
safely visit the rink in the evening as during any other
portion of the day. (ref. 52)
This incongruous undertaking only survived until
1881, (ref. 53) and the premises must have been demolished soon
afterwards.
During the lifetime of the skating rink the only new
houses to be built in Roland Gardens were Nos. 25–29
(odd), begun (as previously mentioned) in 1878. They
were slow to let, No. 27 remaining unoccupied until 1883
and No. 29 until 1884. (ref. 54) They were also the last to be
built in the original style, for in 1882 the Aldins adopted a
new design, which was first used at Nos. 26–32, begun
in that year. (ref. 55) Nos. 34–38 followed in 1883 and Nos.
40–44 in 1884. (ref. 56) On the west side Nos. 31–35 were begun
in 1883 and Nos. 37 and 39 in 1887. (ref. 57) These two facing
ranges of narrow-fronted red-brick houses have four
storeys and pedimented dormer windows in the attics. The
tall first-floor windows open on to a continuous balcony
with an iron railing, and are ornamented with triangular or
segmental-headed pediments of cut brick.
The east side of Roland Gardens was completed by the
building in 1883–5 by Aldins (ref. 58) of No. 46, the southern
side of which overlooks the enclosure at the rear of a range
of houses in Evelyn Gardens on the adjoining Smith's
Charity estate. The roughly triangular site had been sold
by the Aldins in March 1883 to (Sir) Peter Le Page
Renouf, the Egyptologist, oriental scholar and
theologian. (ref. 59) The house was designed for him in the
Tudor Gothic style reminiscent of a Victorian country
vicarage, and has a prominent corner tower capped by a
small spire (Plate 69d). It is built of red brick with stone
dressings (now painted), and was occupied by Renouf until
his death in 1897. His widow and his daughter continued
to live there for many years; the house is now occupied as
St. Teresa's Home. The name of Renouf's architect is not
known, but the striking similarity between No. 46 Roland
Gardens and Parmiter's School, Bethnal Green, of
1885–7, designed by T. Chatfeild Clarke, suggests that
they may have been by the same hand; and it may be
significant that Renouf's many varied activities included
the post of H. M. Inspector of Schools for the Bethnal
Green area. (ref. 60)
The building of Nos. 26–44 and Nos. 31–39 Roland
Gardens in a new style, starting in 1882, coincided with
the introduction of a new partner to the firm. This was Eli
Plater, hitherto the Aldin brothers’ works manager, (ref. 61) <he was also an architect> who
in 1882 was admitted to a partnership for seven years, the
firm's name being changed to Aldin and Plater. (ref. 62) At first
the new houses had been quickly occupied (for example
Nos. 26–32), (ref. 54) but due to a general fall in metropolitan
demand in the early 1880's (ref. 63) takers for the others were to
prove more difficult to find, and the firm was therefore
evidently short of capital. This (reinforced, perhaps, by the
new partner's influence) seems to be the reason why in
August 1883 the Aldin brothers and Logan (the trustee of
their father's will) conveyed all the remaining undeveloped
land, the houses then in course of erection but not yet
disposed of, and the firm's workshops in Alveston Mews
and a number of stables there, to Coutts’ Bank, of which
Logan was an employee. (ref. 64)
This conveyance was evidently in effect a form of
mortgage, for between October 1883 and August 1887
Coutts’ Bank leased Nos. 31–39 and 38–44 Roland
Gardens, as each house was completed, to the Aldins and
Plater for ninety-one-year terms; (ref. 65) and between 1884 and
1894 the bank sold the freeholds either to the Aldin
brothers or to Plater or to their nominees. (ref. 66)
The only land still undeveloped was situated on either
side of the short east-west arm of Roland Gardens, and in
1889–90 this was sold by the bank in three lots to the firm
or its nominee. The first of these conveyances was to Sir
Philip Frederick Rose, second baronet, who was then
living at No. 6, and with whom Aldin and Plater had a
contract to build No. 41 Roland Gardens. (ref. 67) The firm
began work in 1889 (ref. 68) and Sir Philip moved in late in the
following year. (ref. 54) This large red-and-stock-brick house in
the Queen Anne manner is set askew on its irregularly
shaped corner site, Its principal entrance was originally on
the north side but is now on the east side, which is
surmounted by a shaped gable. The name of the architect
is not known.
Figure 44:
Nos. 43 and 45 Roland Gardens, elevation. J. A. J. Keynes, architect, 1891–2
The rest of the and on the south side of Roland
Gardens—now the site of Nos. 43 and 45—was sold in
1889 by Coutts’ Bank to Aldin and Plater. After obtaining
a licence from the London County Council for the
erection of ‘private Studios for Painters’ the firm in rum
sold the site to John Angell James Keynes, a local architect
and surveyor. (ref. 69) Two sets of studios with large north-facing windows were built here in 1891–2 to Keynes’
designs (fig. 44); the builders were Clarke and Company
of Gledhow Terrace. (ref. 70) Artists who soon afterwards took
studios here include Ada Freeman Gell (sculptress), Paul
Fordyce Maitland and George Sauter. (ref. 54)
On the north side of Roland Gardens keynes was
probably also the architect of Nos. 47 and 49, two
undistinguished red-brick houses in the Queen Anne
manner. In 1890 the site was sold by Courts’ Bank to the
Aldin brothers, who leased it to Keynes in 1892. (ref. 71) The
builders were Sherries and Company of Chelsea. (ref. 72)
Subsequently Keynes brought an action against the
Aldins’ successors in title claiming rights of passage along
Alvcston Mews at the rear. (ref. 73)
The development of the whole estate was now complete,
having been spread over some twenty years. Its integration
with the streets of the adjoining Smith's Charity estate to
the south and east had been achieved in 1886, when Aldin
and Plater had agreed to pay C. A. Daw and Son, the
developers of the contiguous land to the south, one
hundred pounds for the right to join the south end of
Roland Gardens with Evelyn Gardens. (ref. 74) Vehicular communication
westward to Drayton Gardens was not, however,
achieved until 1927, when the London County
Council ordered the removal of a dwarf wall extending
across the junction of the western arm of Roland Gardens
with Thistle Grove. (ref. 35)
The completion of development was very soon followed
by the collapse of the firm responsible for it. At
the end of 1889 the partnership between the Aldin
brothers and Eli Plater had been dissolved, several
thousand pounds being owed to the latter, and George
Davies, a surveyor who had been employed by the firm
for over twenty years, was admitted a partner in lieu of
Plater. (ref. 75) But both the Aldins had died soon afterwards,
neither having reached the age of fifty, William in 1892
and Charles in 1894. Davies then found that ‘through
the complications which had arisen in consequence of
the death of his partners, the business had become
crippled for want of capital’, and that there were
unsecured liabilities of over £11,000. He therefore filed
his petition in bankruptcy. During his examination he
later stated that ‘The business had been profitable
throughout, but the drawings had exceeded the profits
made.’ (ref. 76)
By 1897 the Aldins’ works in Alveston Mews had been
taken over by the important building firm of Leslie and
Company, (ref. 35) later to be the contractors for several institutional buildings in South Kensington, including the
Science Museum. (ref. 77) Aldin Brothers and Davies, as the
firm had been recently known, nevertheless survived at its
original address in Queen's Gate Gardens until 1926,
latterly sharing these premises with Leslie and Company
In the 1960's this last firm gave up its London address, but
it still exists at Darlington.
The outward appearance of the Aldins’ estate has not
changed greatly since the 1890's except on the Old
Brompton Road frontage. There No. 2 Roland Gardens,
a northward-facing detached house with a large front
garden, was demolished in 1935 for the building of Roland
House, a nine-storey block of fiats designed by Wimperis,
Simpson and Guthrie and completed in 1936; the contractors were Gee, Walker and Slater. (ref. 78) In 1937–8 Nos.
1–3 Roland Houses suffered the same fate when Brew
Brothers, motor engineers in Roland Way since 1920,
built a five-storey block of car showrooms and offices upon
the site. The architects were Wallis, Gilbert and Partners
and the contractors Leslie and Company. (ref. 79) Nos. 4–6
Roland Houses were demolished in 1981, and their site is
now (1982) vacant. In Roland Way many of the original
coach-houses and stables survive, and some of them still
have their round-headed doors.