The Estates of James Gunter the Younger and Robert Gunter the Younger, and others, 1864 to 1878: the Redcliffe Estate of Corbett and McClymont, Builders
The leasing of Nos. 1–8 Bolton Gardens to Spicer was
concluded in March 1864. In November ten new houses
were leased to their builders on the south side of Tregunter
Road and the north and south sides of Cathcart Road,
extending those streets a little westward. The lessor was
Robert Gunter's younger brother James and the lessees,
together or individually, were William Corbett and
Alexander McClymont, builders. (ref. 181) With these transactions an expansion of the building activities of the Gunter
brothers was initiated. James Gunter was then about
thirty-one and like his elder brother a captain in a regiment
of the Dragoon Guards. He ultimately rose to the command
of the Fourth or Royal Irish Dragoon Guards and retired as
a major-general in 1887. He had seemingly shared his
brother's home at Earl's Court Lodge for a time, and for
many years after Robert's removal to Wetherby in 1857
continued to be designated as 'of Earl's Court' in titledeeds. He does not figure there in directories, however,
conceivably because he used his step-mother's house at
No. 16 The Boltons as his pied à terre. In the 1880's he is
described as of Boston Hall, Tadcaster, Yorkshire, where
he was a rider to hounds and in steeplechases. He married
in 1891 and died in 1908. (ref. 182)
The ensuing development differed from the earlier by
being carried out more extensively on the property of
James than of Robert Gunter (so far as the area south of
Old Brompton Road is concerned) and by being placed
almost entirely in the hands of Corbett and McClymont,
except in so far as they brought in what George Godwin
called 'some few undertenants' in the persons of other
local builders. Corbett and McClymont seem to have been
in a sense the motivating force and their wave of building
flowed uninterruptedly over the adjacent land of R. J.
Pettiward (at K on fig. 58), the small property of the
Robinsons at the south-east end of Redcliffe Gardens (see
page 194) and two other properties, those of J. L. Tomlin
at a, g (fig. 58), and of members of their own firm of
solicitors, Lewins of Southampton Street, at j, k.
They named all their large leasehold property here the
Redcliffe Estate and publicized it under that designation,
regardless of the various ground landlords' boundaries, or
the minor sites of subordinate builders (fig. 64).
At the same time Corbett and McClymont were working
on Robert Gunter's estate at Fulham and on other estates
in and out of London.
The evidence of the buildings themselves is conclusive
that the kind of house they put up on the 'Redcliffe Estate'
was more or less unaffected by the freehold boundaries
across which they operated. In Redcliffe Gardens, for
example, the ranges between Fawcett Street and
Tregunter Road are similar on both sides (and similar to
some of Corbett and McClymont's houses in Avenue
Elmers at Surbiton), although on the east the freeholder
was James Gunter and on the west R. J. Pettiward (Plate
88b). That the designs all came from the office of George
and Henry Godwin seems probable. The scattering and
mingling of architectural detail throughout the area
suggests this. So does the evidence of the lease of one
building erected on the Pettiward estate, the former
Redcliffe Arms public house at No. 268 Fulham Road.
All the other Pettiward leases have only block plans on
them, but there the room-plan was given and it is drawn in
the 'house-style' attributable to the Godwins' office. (ref. 183)
The westward spread of building by the Gunter
brothers in 1864 was dependant on the purchase of the
land (B, C, H, M on fig. 58) that had been acquired at the
beginning of the century by Philip Gilbert and that
separated the land already built upon around The Boltons
from the inherited lands of James Gunter at L and of
Robert Gunter at A, G.
In March and April 1864 James Gunter bought the
requisite land from the widow of the Reverend Edward
Gilbert, in whom Philip Gilbert's property had become
vested. (ref. 184) The piece of three and a half acres that had not
yet been freed from its copyhold status had been
enfranchised by Mrs. Gilbert in February for £948. (ref. 36)
James Gunter paid her £15,810 for the area B, C, with
Coleherne House and Hereford House standing upon it,
and £15,500 for the piece H, M, less the eastward limb of
M at m (fig. 58). (ref. 184)
This latter piece, which hitherto had followed the same
line of descent as the rest of M, had been sold by Mrs.
Gilbert and her mortgagees in the previous month, January
1864. The purchaser was Spencer Robert Lewin, a partner
in the firm of solicitors in Southampton Street already
mentioned. (ref. 185) The property lay across the head of two
streets, the well-established Seymour Walk, which remained a cul-de-sac, and Redcliffe Road, to which it was to
give outlet at the northern end. This latter road had just
been completed (except at its south-west end), the last conveyances of the new houses there having been made two
months before, by Lewin himself and his father Robert
Lewin. The making of this road has been described on
pages 175–6. Its significance here is that it had brought
together in one enterprise the Gunters' architect, George
Godwin, the Lewins' firm, and the builders Corbett and
McClymont. Unusually, the undertaking had concluded
with the grants of the freehold tenure of the houses to
Corbett and McClymont. At plot m (fig. 58) the same procedure was followed, and soon, in April 1864, S. R. Lewin,
for an unknown consideration, granted the eastern part to
McClymont and the western to Corbett. (ref. 186) On the eastern
extremity of his plot McClymont built Cathcart House,
finishing the east side of Redcliffe Road, for his own
occupation (see page 176). Cathcart Road was laid out along
the north side of the strip of ground, giving Redcliffe Road
westward communication with the streets to be built on the
Redcliffe Estate. On its south side Corbett just had room for
four houses, one completing the sequence on the west side
of Redcliffe Road, and three, double-fronted but shallow,
facing Cathcart Road (Nos. 1–7 odd Cathcart Road). On
the north side of the road lay the back gardens of Nos. 9–23
(odd) Tregunter Road on the separate property of Robert
Gunter.
Nos. 1–7 (odd) Cathcart Road (Plate 84b) came into
occupation in 1865–6. (ref. 54) At No. 7 the first occupant from
1865 to 1868 was an architect employed at South
Kensington by the Science and Art Department, John
Liddell, (ref. 187) who moved here from Elm Place during his
brief period of hopeful prosperity before sinking to the
obscurity in which he eked out his resources by acting as
occasional draughtsman to, among others, Corbett and
McClymont. (ref. 188)
Despite the immediate proximity to Redcliffe Road,
where the development was closely associated with
Godwin, and where some of the characteristic architectural features of the Redcliffe Estate are on display, the
houses built on Corbett's freehold in Cathcart Road,
although by no means beyond Godwin's stylistic vagaries,
are more in the manner of some of the houses at Corbett
and McClymont's starting point in Pimlico.
Perhaps because Robert and James Gunter's advisers
were finding it better to work through one or two lessees,
and because Godwin was pleased with Corbett and
McClymont's work in Redcliffe Road, they had the chief
role henceforward south of Old Brompton Road, just as
John Spicer was given a large 'take' north of that road.
Figure 64:
The area discussed in Chapter XII, showing the boundaries in c. 1870 of the freehold estates of Robert and James Gunter (broken line) and the leasehold Redcliffe Estate of Corbett and McClymont, builders (solid line), with present street layout and house numbers. Based on the Ordnance Survey of 1949–72
Layout and Progress
As has been seen, the expansion westward into the new
territory began promptly, with a few houses at Nos. 25
and 27 Tregunter Road and Nos. 26–32 (even) and
9–15 (odd) Cathcart Road in 1864 (the last now replaced
by part of Corbett House). Generally, Corbett and McClymont worked from the south-east part, around the lower
half of Hollywood Road, westward and northward. This
was a natural progression which also accommodated the
fact that the piece of property west of Walnut Tree Walk at
J on fig. 58 was acquired only in June 1866, when Robert
Gunter bought it for £8,500 from J. G. Hillersdon of
Wexham, Berkshire, as copyholder of the manor of Earl's
Court. (ref. 189) In April 1867 Gunter paid £2,228 to enfranchise this plot of seven and a quarter acres. (ref. 36)
This completed the Gunters' major freehold purchases
in the area here dealt with. The site of Hawk Cottage was
bought in the following year and small properties were
acquired at the bottom of Gilston Road and in Holmes
Place in 1865 and 1881 (see pages 174, 229). In 1877
Robert Gunter wisely ignored a suggestion, made by
Corbett via Tomlin, that he should buy the freehold of the
land already developed at Nos. 1–14 Redcliffe Road. (ref. 190)
A factor in the progression of Corbett and McClymont's
work, slightly modifying its south-to-north tendency, was
evidently a wish to see the two main-road frontages quickly
occupied, so that the two ranges at Nos. 239–259 and
261–279 (odd) Old Brompton Road were built as part of
the campaigns of 1866–8, slightly before other 'northerly'
areas and at about the same time as the development of the
southern frontage at Nos. 266–306b (even) Fulham Road
in 1865–9. In view of the age-old liking of London builders
for making taverns the first structures to be put up on their
building-sites it is not perhaps surprising that the public
houses (five in number) erected on the Redcliffe Estate
were either, like the Hollywood Arms, in areas of naturally
early development, or built a little before most of the
surrounding houses. The latter is also true of two sites, at
the south side of Wharfedale Street (in lieu of the site of
the Coleherne Arms) and the north-west corner of Redcliffe Mews, which were originally meant to accommodate
public houses (Plates 85c, 92a).
The layout of streets, submitted in its southern part by
Corbett and McClymont to the Metropolitan Board of
Works from the Redcliffe Estate Office at No. 2a
Redcliffe Gardens in April 1864 and approved by the
Board in June, was straightforward. (ref. 191) It already proposed
a network of streets over both the Gunter and Pettiward
properties. The main lines of communication ran north
and south. Hollywood Road and Harcourt Terrace were to
continue the line of Hollywood Grove (and in 1866 were
still intended to traverse the land now covered by
Coleherne Court to meet Old Brompton Road (ref. 192) ).
Redcliffe Gardens was a widening of the existing Walnut
Tree Walk. At the extreme western margin of the area
Honey Lane skirted the boundary of Brompton Cemetery
from Fulham Road to Old Brompton Road. Corbett and
McClymont obtained permission to close this so far north
as the line of Tregunter Road, and to replace it by Ifield
Road a house-plot's width to the east. (ref. 191) Robert Gunter's
acquisition of plot J on fig. 58 in 1866 allowed the rest of
Honey Lane to be closed, and Ifield Road and Finborough
Road proceeded northward. In 1866 the proposal was to
make the northern third of this route, after the junction of
the two roads, prolong the direction of Finborough rather
than of Ifield Road, (ref. 192) but this was soon changed and a
full depth of house-plot was thus obtained on the west side
of the road. Behind Ifield Road on its west side Adrian
Mews preserves the name which, in the form Adrian
Terrace, was borne by this part of Ifield Road until 1909.
It represents a portion of what Corbett and McClymont
called 'the old Cart Road' of Honey Lane.
A plan of the layout intended in summer 1866 differs
from what was built chiefly in the northward extension of
the line of Hollywood Road, the construction of streets of
houses on the northern part of the site of Coleherne
House, and the positioning of Redcliffe Square on the
southern part of that site and westwards — that is, one
'block' northward of its actual location. A church
adumbrating St. Luke's, Redcliffe Square, is shown but is
placed further south, at the southern corner of Redcliffe
Street and Redcliffe Gardens. (ref. 192)
Setting aside the 62 house-sites that had been granted
to Corbett and McClymont in 1861–4 in Redcliffe Road
and Cathcart Road and the 14 more made over to them in
Redcliffe Road and Fulham Road in 1866 (see pages 175–6,
212), the numbers leased to them in the years 1864 to
1876 south of Old Brompton Road were 827 houses and
some 72 mews premises, including in this number 156
houses and 22 mews leased to other builders at their
nomination. Additionally a run of 25 houses and 5 mews at
Nos. 70–118 (even) Ifield Road were granted by S. R.
Lewin in 1868 direct to other builders but in every other
respect were integral parts of the Redcliffe Estate and were
advertised as such by Corbett and McClymont.
This whole west side of Ifield Road and its continuation
as Nos. 120–194 (even) Finborough Road was, however,
rather distinctive in the history of its freehold ownership.
In July 1867 R. J. Pettiward and his trustees, with whom
Corbett and McClymont had already come to some
agreement concerning the disposal of his freehold land (K
on fig. 58), conveyed the strip west of Corbett and
McClymont's intended road, the future sites of Nos.
2–118 (even) Ifield Road and Nos. 304a–306b Fulham
Road (k), at the request of Corbett and McClymont to
Henry Lewin, who was the head of their firm of
solicitors. (ref. 193) The following month, August 1867, Robert
Gunter conveyed the adjacent strip northward (j) at the
west side of his newly acquired plot J, where Nos.
120–180 (even) Ifield Road were to be built, to Corbett
and McClymont, who in February 1868 conveyed it to
Henry Lewin's brother Robert. (ref. 194) In June 1869 Robert
Gunter conveyed the northernmost section, south of
Brecknock House, at the future site of Nos. 120–194
(even) Finborough Road (a, g, on the west side of his
inherited property A, G on fig. 58) to Corbett and
McClymont: in August they conveyed it away, again to one
of the men of business they were constantly dealing with,
Gunter's own solicitor, J. L. Tomlin. (ref. 195) In each case the
beneficiary of the grant proceeded to make building leases
to Corbett and McClymont or (in the limited instance
noted above) to builders doubtless associated with them.
(In the southernmost section these leases were made by
S. R. Lewin as the trustee, and successor at Messrs. Lewin,
of his uncle Henry. (ref. 196) ) Corbett and McClymont's
handling of the legal and financial interests in their
properties was not simple or easily intelligible, but this
conveyance-and-lease-back arrangement may have been
merely some kind of remuneration for professional
services. If so, it was in one of the least choice, but perhaps
in one of the 'safer', parts of their estate.
The numbers of houses leased to Corbett and
McClymont or their nominees in each year, generally
betokening the numbers roofed-in during that year, rose
from 12 in 1864 to 156 in 1867: the most active period
was the four years 1866–9, when 524 house-sites were
leased, the number falling to 7 in 1876. (ref. 197) The last ones to
be leased, in 1872–6, were, with the exception of Nos.
72–82 (even) Finborough Road, all in the vicinity of
Redcliffe Square. (This last period of Corbett and
McClymont's activity also encompassed their only
substantial ventures north of Old Brompton Road, with
the houses over shops westward from No. 232 Old
Brompton Road round the corner into Earl's Court Road
in 1875–6 and the big houses at Nos. 198–224 Old
Brompton Road ('Bolton Gardens West') in 1876–8.)
The totals given here comprise under 'Corbett and
McClymont' leases granted to each individually, with the
other a consenting party, and to both of them.
The number of houses built by Corbett and McClymont
in 1871–7 was much greater than the number built by any
other firm within the area of the district surveyor for South
Kensington in the ten years 1871–80, even though the
period 1871–7 was past the peak of Corbett and
McClymont's activity. (ref. 198)
This surge of building ended with the bankruptcy of
Corbett and McClymont in 1878 with liabilities of some
one-and-a-quarter million pounds. The little that can be
said about the way they conducted their business and its
bearing upon their failure will be reverted to below, but it
may be noted here that so far as the ground landlords'
estates were concerned the bankruptcy might well have
been much worse timed, as in the event the fields had just
been safely covered with houses.
Corbett and McClymont, Builders, and Others
When William Corbett and Alexander McClymont had first
worked in southern Kensington, at Redcliffe Road in 1861,
both were living as 'esquires' at houses in Winchester
Street, Pimlico. (ref. 135) The former, born in London, was aged
thirty and the latter, born in Scotland, aged thirty-four.
Both were married, with a child or children. (ref. 199) McClymont
had a builder's and estate agent's office in St. George's
Road, where he was also manager of the National Savings
Bank. (ref. 135) Corbett at that time described himself in titledeeds, significantly, as an accountant and continued to do
so until 1863, changing in 1864 to McClymont's designation of 'builder'. (ref. 200) He had probably begun his working
life as a clerk in the solicitor's office of Messrs. Lewin, (ref. 201)
and if so this, too, would have been significant. Lewins were
to be much involved in Corbett and McClymont's work,
giving them, especially in the person of William Corbett,
access to the wide borderland where legal and financial
expertise (or the assumption of such) overlapped.
In 1863 Corbett moved to No. 14 Redcliffe Road as its
first occupant and in 1865 McClymont to No. 22 in the
same street. (ref. 54) For the next thirteen years both lived on
their Redcliffe Estate (Corbett for longer), success
enabling each to take a larger house. McClymont in 1867
moved to one of the estate's few detached houses, Cathcart
House, newly built at the top of Redcliffe Road, and
Corbett in 1870 to a new house at No. 35 The Little
Boltons (semi-detached from the house of one of the
firm's backers, the banker W. G. Logan, at No. 33). (ref. 54) In
1871 each had two female servants living in. McClymont at
least (then aged forty-four) additionally employed a
coachman, stable boy and gardener. (fn. a) In 1871 Corbett's
elder son, W. G. Corbett, aged seventeen, was still at
school. (ref. 204) In 1874 the younger daughter seems to have
gone away to school. By 1878 both sons (aged twenty-four
and twenty-one) were working for their father: they called
their parents 'Pater' and 'Mater'. (ref. 205)
The firm's offices were in Fulham Road just east of
Hollywood Road from 1866 to 1869. In the latter year they
were moved permanently to No. 2a Redcliffe Gardens:
for a year or two the firm also had an office at No. 259
Old Brompton Road. (ref. 55) In 1866 the site of No. 2a
Redcliffe Gardens had been briefly in use as a 'Bowling
Saloon' with 'Billiard Rooms' over it, in connexion with
the newly established Redcliffe Arms next door at the
corner of Fulham Road. That year the Metropolitan Fire
Brigade considered taking the site for a fire station.
Corbett and McClymont would have welcomed this but
when the brigade did not do so converted the premises
into their offices. (ref. 206) In 1870–2 No. 2a Redcliffe
Gardens also accommodated an office of T. E. Lewin,
brother of S. R. Lewin and a member of Corbett and
McClymont's firm of solicitors: since 1866 or 1867 he had
lived on their estate in a detached house at No. 18
Tregunter Road.
As a building firm Corbett and McClymont attracted
some attention for the modernity of their methods.
Steam-powered joiner's machinery, supplied at a cost of
about £1,000 by Samuel Worssam and Company of
Chelsea, was used from at least 1867 and was fully
described by George Godwin in a leading article in The
Builder the following year, with a relish for the great
economies in labour it effected. (ref. 207) The plant was then
apparently on the Redcliffe Estate, but by 1872 the main
works had been moved (probably in 1871) to buildings
erected for Corbett and McClymont near Lillie Bridge in
Fulham, at the corner of Seagrave and Merrington
Roads. (ref. 208) From about 1870 they also had a workshop at
No. 26 Redcliffe Mews (Plate 92a). (ref. 209)
One feature of their work that was praised by their
friend The Builder was their roofing. The tops of some
houses were sealed by two or three courses of plain tiles
laid in cement over arched wooden ribs, the whole then
being rendered and cemented to give the house an
impermeable (if very heavy) roof, slightly convex in section,
that was thought resistant to fire. This kind of roof survives
quite extensively, particularly in the streets of smaller
houses. The earliest are some of 1862 in Redcliffe Road.
Conceivably others survive unrecognizably under orthodox
roofs. Some are also to be found on the Gunter estate in
Chelsea, at the south-east end of Edith Grove. But, as The
Builder commented, 'good workmanship is necessary'. (ref. 210)
Relations with the workmen were not always good, and
Corbett and McClymont held out longer than most firms
against their men's demands in the strike in 1872 before a
compromise was made. McClymont was reported in The
Building News as asserting the firm's determination not to
be bound to a set rate of pay but to observe differentials for
superior skill. Furthermore (McClymont said), 'it should
be understood the firm did not occupy the position of
ordinary builders or contractors who regulated their prices
by the ruling or standard wages of the day, but more
resembled an independent gentleman employing workmen
to build on his own land. No matter what he paid he could
get no more than a certain rent for his houses, and was
fully justified in purchasing his labour cheap if he could,
without reference to the custom or regulations of the trade.
. . . [Since 1862] they had got around them a great body
of workmen whom they were now sorry to part with, but
whom they had never ceased to classify or pay according to
merit and ability.' (ref. 211)
The workmen — or the joiners at least — were, as the
true-blue Corbett said, 'mostly Liberals!!' and enough of
them were employed in the 'large joiners Shop' at Lillie
Bridge in 1874 to make it worthwhile for a prospective
Parliamentary candidate to come and harangue them in
the Conservative interest. (ref. 212) In 1872 and 1878 some
500 men were employed. (ref. 213) That Corbett and
McClymont's establishment was extensive is suggested by
Corbett's comment to an employee on his property at
Westgate in Thanet, whom he instructed to use a
work-diary or day-book — 'I have diaries used by all my
leading men in Town and they are found very useful'. (ref. 214)
Not all the work on the Redcliffe Estate, however, was
done by Corbett and McClymont themselves. They built
the roads and sewers, (ref. 215) but were inclined to make a
'selling-point' of the fact that, for example, Nos. 1–7 (odd)
Cathcart Road and the houses in Redcliffe Road (on their
own freehold) had been built by them. (ref. 216) They subsequently employed at least two local builders to do repairs
on their estate. (ref. 217) And at some sites, particularly in the
years 1865–8, they arranged for other builders to receive
the leases to which they were entitled by their agreements
with the ground landlords. The most extensively involved
was a local builder, John Beale, who was a nominee for
leases of house-sites from 1864 to 1868, (ref. 218) (as well as
being lessee from Robert Gunter in Fernshaw Road,
Chelsea, in 1863 and 1865), (ref. 219) and was marked 'bankrupt' in the ratebooks in 1869. (ref. 220) By 1868 bankruptcy
had also overtaken the builder A. M. Greig, (ref. 221) who
came from Pimlico and was nominee for leases in
1864 (ref. 222) and 1866. (ref. 223) Other nominees were William
Forster and Joseph Temple of Paddington (1865–6), (ref. 224)
John Gibbings of Chelsea (1865–6), (ref. 225) Thomas Hussey
and Thomas Huggett (1865), (ref. 226) Frederick Saunders
(1865), (ref. 227) and George Smith of Pimlico (1865–6). (ref. 228)
Rather later Jeremiah Little had a substantial 'take' as
nominee in Redcliffe Gardens (1869) and Coleherne Road
(1872–3). (ref. 229) Gibbings, Greig and Saunders are also
known to have been sub-lessees from Corbett and McClymont. (ref. 230) So were other builders — R. G. Sharpin, for
example, (1867), (ref. 231) George German of Pimlico
(1868), (ref. 232) and Richard Fitt of Pimlico (1868), (ref. 233) who
also worked for Corbett at Westgate. Doubtless there were
other sub-leasing builders whose names are not known.
Generally the areas of these 'subsidiary' builders do not
coincide perceptibly with significant 'breaks' in the handling of the houses. The division between Beale's and
Little's houses at Nos. 23 and 25 Coleherne Road is
noticeable but there is four years' difference of date and
doubtless a change of intention on the part of Robert
Gunter's surveyor between them. Little's adjacent houses
facing Redcliffe Gardens seem more coarsely detailed
than the similar houses in the same street south of Redcliffe Square, perhaps by Corbett and McClymont themselves. This is explicable in the light of Corbett's own
words in 1879. He was describing how the work had been
carried on at another part of Robert Gunter's estate, in
Fulham: 'Mr Tomlin (Col. Gunter's solicitor) and Mr
Godwin his Surveyor hold a set of elevations and specifications; and it was understood that when we had built a
house, other houses that might be built afterwards, were to
be similar to that already built; therefore any house in St
Oswald's Road would be a pattern house, for those to be
erected'. (ref. 234) This time-worn procedure would account for
some variations over and above the brisk diversity of the
Godwins' taste.
Architects and Architecture
That taste was seemingly for harsher motifs brought
together in a more random manner than in most of the
pre-1864 work. It is, however, foreshadowed in the houses
in Redcliffe Road and Harley Gardens of 1861–3. It may
be that the influence of Henry Godwin, who was thirtyfour in 1865 to his brother's fifty, was taking effect. The
contrast is marked in The Little Boltons—on the east
side Spicer's plain and mild houses of 1858–64 and on the
west Corbett and McClymont's of 1867–8, still plainish
but square-jawed and raw-boned (Plate 85a, b). Ruthless
chamfering did what was desired there, but elsewhere a
gaunt effect was more simply achieved by misproportioning, as at the forbidding houses, Nos. 2–26 (even)
Finborough Road. Opposite, at Nos. 1–7 (odd) and No. 17
Redcliffe Place, the lavishing of unsightly motifs on the
high stock-brick hulk of the ordinary London terrace does
at least powerfully evoke what 'London' in its western
reaches means to many dwellers in bedsitting-rooms (Plate
92c, d). In the smaller cross-streets such as Fawcett
Street or Wharfedale Street the more subdued use of the
repertory of motifs is less unpleasing (Plate 85c). The two
terraces of shops at Nos. 239–279 (odd) Old Brompton
Road (1866–8, Plate 89d) have the gawky appeal of 'downmarket' quasi-Gothicizing (rarely used hereabouts) and
are quite different from Corbett and McClymont's other
ranges over shops west of Redcliffe Gardens, which at
Nos. 270–296 (even) Fulham Road (Plate 89b) repeat
something of the style of Nos. 204–210 Fulham Road.
And where the miscellany of stylistic devices is employed
without inhibitions, on public houses such as the Hollywood Arms (1865) and Coleherne Arms (1866), the effect
is, in its way, invigorating (Plate 89a, 89c). Redcliffe Square,
built so far as its characteristic parts go in 1869–76, is an
undiluted example of one version of the Godwins' mixed
'style', illustrated and published under their names (Plates
90, 91, 96a, 108, fig. 68). Here the vivacity of detailing at
one time extended to the mansard roofs, where the zinc
flashing was originally cut into the form of acanthus leaves
and the use of two tones of slate gave a polychromatic
effect.
If the 'Corbett and McClymont' phase of building in
this area is harder on the eye than are the earlier, eastern,
streets it is partly because the arrangement less frequently
permitted the front gardens which in those streets by their
lushness happily recall Brompton's horticultural fame. Nor
was this yet quite the period when trees were commonly
planted in London streets (unlike Westgate, where in 1877
Corbett was planning to plant many poplars and
sycamores (ref. 235) ).
George Godwin's magazine The Builder in March 1868
named him and Henry as the architects on the Redcliffe
Estate for the Gunter brothers and Messrs. C. Lee and
Sons as architects for 'the freeholder of another part of
the estate'. (ref. 207) This presumably meant R. J. Pettiward's
property at K but, as has been seen, there is no perceptible
all-over difference in the mixture of styles on his and the
Gunters' land. Neither The Builder nor The Building News
mention work for Pettiward in their obituaries of Charles
Lee in 1880. (ref. 236) The stress in the obituary in The Builder
then lay on Lee's career as a surveyor. Perhaps that was
chiefly his role here.
The relations of the Godwins with Corbett and
McClymont seem, so far as the perhaps obscuring
evidence of Corbett's business-letters shows, to have been
formal and distant, with Tomlin normally an intermediary.
George Godwin certainly, however, and perhaps Henry
also, was involved with the firm's work as an investor. In
1872 Corbett and McClymont repaid £800 which
George Godwin had lent them and one of the Godwins
still had an involvement as to £500 in 1878. (ref. 237) George
also bought some improved ground rents—of six houses
in The Little Boltons in 1867, for example, (ref. 238) and of five
houses in Hollywood Road in 1868, (ref. 239) as well as at least
one house in Ifield Road. (ref. 240)
Corbett and McClymont did employ an architect of
their own. He was F. Nesbitt Kemp, who on his death was
said by The Builder, in a not wholly accurate obituary, to
have been 'responsible for the layout of large areas in
Kensington, including Redclyffe-square [sic]'. (ref. 241) This
statement was made, however, in 1939, and although
Kemp had by then begun practice 'over 70 years ago' that
can hardly have been appreciably before 1869, and he does
not occur in the Architect's, Engineer's and Building Trades
Directory of 1868. Possibly he set up with his elder brother
Alfred as architect in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1869. (ref. 135) The
stylistic tone of the Redcliffe Estate was by then
established, and some of the Redcliffe Square houses must
have already been designed. In 1871 Kemp, then aged
twenty-four and the son of a bill-broker, was living in his
parents' house at No. 12 Finborough Road. (ref. 242) By 1873
he had a professional address at Corbett and McClymont's
Redcliffe Estate office at No. 2a Redcliffe Gardens,
whence he applied to Kensington Vestry, seemingly in his
own right as architect, to erect Nos. 280 and 282 Earl's
Court Road, which were then being constructed by a
builder, Edward Francis. (ref. 243) Although off the Redcliffe
Estate, they are rather in its manner. After Corbett and
McClymont's bankruptcy in 1878 Kemp, called by Corbett
in 1880 'our late Architect', drew some room-plans of
'Bolton Gardens West' for them, to help sales. He had
previously had the working drawings of these houses in his
room at Corbett and McClymont's offices. (ref. 244) But it may
be that here, as was evidently the case in Redcliffe Square,
his role was that of setting-out or site architect, not
designer. In 1881 he developed an estate of small houses
around Dancer Road, Fulham, (ref. 245) in a blunt 'red-brick'
manner which has no affinity with that of the Redcliffe
Estate beyond its striving for variety.
Figure 65:
Plans of houses built in the area discussed in Chapter XII. a. No. 5 Bolton Gardens, 1863. Demolished b. No. 1 The Little Boltons, 1866 c. No. 51 Redcliffe Gardens, 1871 d. No. 35 Tregunter Road, 1866 e. No. 27 Cathcart Road, 1864 f. No. 28 The Boltons, 1859
At Westgate William Corbett employed C. N. Beazley as
his architect. It seems certain, however, that although later,
in 1882–96, Beazley lived at No. 32 Harcourt Terrace (ref. 135)
he had nothing to do with the Redcliffe Estate as architect.
This seems negatively apparent from Corbett's letters.
Further, in 1870 Corbett invited him and a Westgate
landowner to come up from Thanet to view the firm's
workshops and then go down to see their operations at
Surbiton, which suggests that Beazley was not very familiar
with what was going on in and around London. (ref. 246) A
reference by Corbett in 1878, addressing the Royal
Insurance Company, of which he had long been an agent, to
'my old friend Mr Chas N. Beazley the architect, whose
name has come several times before you in connection with
the Westgate on Sea Estate' similarly seems to make it
unlikely he had also been known in the context of Kensington. (ref. 247) Beazley's houses for Corbett at Westgate have
little or nothing of the Redcliffe Estate about them stylistically.
Only at one place is there any hint of the possible
adjustment of the range of 'styles' of the house-exteriors in
connexion with a known architect. This is at Nos. 20 and
22 Tregunter Road — houses in a slightly different
manner from their neighbours, not least in their display of
'red' brick (Plate 86d, fig. 63c). There Corbett and
McClymont's nominee for the lease in 1865 was an
architect, J. H. Strudwick, who had been a resident in
Priory Walk and became the first occupant of No. 20
Tregunter Road. (ref. 248)
House Plans and Types
If the architecture of this swathe of building is not
attractive the arrangement of individual houses, so far as
the Godwins' ground-floor lease-plans indicate, was
sensible and sometimes ingenious. (ref. 249) Extending the view
back to include the houses built before 1864, one or two
points appear. In the smaller terrace houses the number
where the front and back rooms are shown intercommunicating is notable. This was made possible
because in these houses the staircase was almost always
given its traditional position at the rear of the entrance hall.
Fewer front and back rooms are so connected in the
semi-detached houses, perhaps because borrowed light
from one room to the other seemed less necessary.
Throughout all the houses three rooms on the ground
floor was the general rule. Some small sites had only two
rooms, but in the earlier part of the development, in the
1850's, two-roomed ground floors also occur even in
uncramped semi-detached houses: in Gilston Road and
Harley Gardens, for example, less need seems to have
been felt to contrive a third room than in the streets of ten
or fifteen years later. At the big terrace houses in Redcliffe
Square the third, rear, room was an important apartment,
often the full width of the house and lit from the garden or,
where a corner location gave side light, extending over
most of the available space at the back. Only a very few
houses had more than three ground-floor rooms. Two or
three corner houses in Redcliffe Square had four, and
Nos. 16 and 17 The Boltons six (unless some of these were
service areas).
About a quarter of the Redcliffe Square houses
generally conformed to old town-house practice of the
grander sort in having two staircases (fig. 68) — a very
unusual provision in the area occurring elsewhere, so far as
the lease-plans show, only at the detached house, No. 51
Redcliffe Gardens (fig. 65c).
The difference in the management of the staircase
between the east and west sides of The Boltons has been
noticed. In the semi-detached houses generally the placing
of this feature varied. Sometimes the usual terrace-house
entrance-cum-staircase hall was retained, more usually on
the 'outer' side of the house than against the party wall.
The arrangement on the west side of The Boltons was
partly adumbrated in Gilston Road, where, for example,
the plan of Nos. 18 and 20, built by William Harding in
1852, is very close to what Spicer built on a larger scale
and with a very different stylistic dress, at Nos. 18 and 19
The Boltons in 1857. (ref. 250)
Most of the plans and all the 'semi-detached' plans
seem to show water closets on the ground floor. Only
smaller terrace houses in the western streets and in
Milborne Grove seem to be without them.
These plans were presumably in general not much
susceptible of modification, although in 1871 at No. 32
Coleherne Road Corbett and McClymont may have
adjusted the plan for the lessee and occupant, a
dilettante-architect, A. H. Edmonds. (ref. 251)
At No. 44 Cathcart Road, a corner house, the
arrangement was conceivably adapted to the needs of the
first occupant, a surgeon. A distinct rear room is provided,
with separate access from the side road. (ref. 252) Other
houses, like some on the west side of The Boltons or Nos.
1 and 2 Harley Gardens look as if they might have been
arranged with a 'professional' man in mind or at least a
'man of business', having smallish rooms set off to one side
of the entrance hall away from the larger reception rooms,
as if for the conduct of business or to serve as waiting
rooms. At No. 27 Cathcart Road, finished in 1866, the
single-storey, top-lit rear building opens, as at No. 44
opposite, to Hollywood Road: here, however, as the
building lease states, it was 'intended to be used as
Studios' (ref. 253) (Plate 84d, fig. 65e). It is separately
numbered as 16 Hollywood Road and was indeed first
occupied by a sculptor, Morton Edwards, until he became
bankrupt in about 1870. (ref. 54)
A top-lit rear room was provided also at No. 19
Redcliffe Square, but there it was perhaps a billiardroom (ref. 254) (fig. 68).
Another Victorian amenity, the conservatory, seems to
be supplied in the ground-floor plans of a number of
houses, some of modest size, over a range of years. They
are probably discernible on plans of Nos. 1 and 2 Harley
Gardens (1851), Nos. 18 and 20 Gilston Road (1852),
Nos. 13 and 14 Milborne Grove (1862), Nos. 9–13
(consec.) Harley Gardens (1863), Nos. 45–49 (odd)
Cathcart Road (1866), Nos. 1–27 (odd) The Little
Boltons (1866–7, fig. 65b), and Nos. 92 and 94 Redcliffe
Gardens (1869). (ref. 255)
Figure 66:
Plans of public houses built or proposed on the Redcliffe Estate, 1865–8.
a. Harcourt Arms, Redcliffe Mews. Not established. b. Redcliffe Arms, Fulham Road c. Hollywood Arms, Hollywood Road d. Finborough Arms, Finborough Road e. Coleherne Arms, Old Brompton Road
As to the general types of house built by Corbett and
McClymont, these continued the existing pattern: very few
detached houses, and many semi-detached. The proportion of terrace houses was, however, higher than before, as
the more westerly streets brought a rather humbler client
within the aim of the Redcliffe Estate. One departure was
that, whereas the terraces built in the 1850's and early
1860's were all set out as pairs of houses with mirrored
plans, Nos. 9–25 (odd) Cathcart Road of 1864–5
introduced the terrace of identically planned houses here,
and thereafter Corbett and McClymont (or the Godwins)
used that arrangement as freely as the other. It was used in
Redcliffe Square (and at the big houses of Bolton Gardens
West on the north side of Old Brompton Road).
Shops and Public Houses
One type of building shown on the plans for the Redcliffe
Estate not represented in the earlier phase is the purposebuilt shop. This was not an elaborate matter, the planning
being little more than the inclusion of a wide, flat shop
window and second entrance, and (sometimes) the omission of the partition between front and back rooms. On the
Gunter and Robinson estates the plans show shops intended from the first at Nos. 106–116 (even) Finborough
Road (1868–9), Nos. 236–238a (even) and Nos. 266
and 266a Fulham Road (also 1868–9), Nos. 2–14 (even)
and 47–55 (odd) Hollywood Road (1865), and at the two
ranges originally called Coleherne Terrace (Nos. 239–
259 odd Old Brompton Road, 1867) and Claro Terrace
(Nos. 261–279 odd Old Brompton Road, 1866–8, Plate
89d). (ref. 256)
Most of these groups of shops included or were adjacent
to public houses. There were none of these within the
earlier-developed part of the Gunter estate, but their
provision was important to Corbett and McClymont, who
were permitted to erect six on their Redcliffe Estate—this
presumably by agreement between the Gunters and R. J.
Pettiward. In fact, Corbett and McClymont built, between
1865 and 1868, only five operative public houses—two on
Robert Gunter's land (the Coleherne Arms, now The
Coleherne, Old Brompton Road (Plate 89c), and Finborough Arms, Finborough Road), two on R. J. Pettiward's
(the Ifield Arms, Ifield Road, and the former Redcliffe
Arms, Fulham Road, Plate 89b), and one (the Hollywood
Arms, Hollywood Road, Plate 89a) on James Gunter's
land. Corbett thought this a slenderer provision than on
other estates of comparable population in London, which
at least tended to make the five 'very valuable properties'. (ref. 257) Corbett and McClymont sold their lease of the
Hollywood Arms in 1866 to a victualler from Southwark
for £6,500. On a sale in 1872 the price was down to
£6,000, but in 1894 the reduced term of the lease was
bought by Watney and Company for £10,000. (ref. 258) The
sixth of the prospective public houses, the Harcourt Arms,
intended to be placed at Nos. 26 and 28 Redcliffe Mews
(Plate 92a), was never opened. Corbett and McClymont
used the premises as a workshop until their bankruptcy
and thereafter James Gunter would not let them convert it
to a tavern. (ref. 259) On the leases of public houses the groundfloor plans are drawn as carefully as those of dwelling
houses, showing the bar arrangements (fig. 66). The
Redcliffe Arms was an extensive establishment, with
separate drinking-places besides the main bar (too
spacious, perhaps, to be called snuggeries), and, initially,
stabling, bowling saloon and billiard-room. (ref. 260) Separate
drinking-rooms seem to have been provided at the
Hollywood Arms and Coleherne Arms; (ref. 261) and at the
Finborough Arms and the abortive Harcourt Arms, in
addition to these snuggeries, the main bar was divided in
three with separate entrances. (ref. 262) Segregation was
evidently desired even at the last of these, in what must
have been intended wholly as a working-man's tavern.
Rents and Prices
The houses of the 'Corbett and McClymont' period were
not, generally, designed for or taken by prospective frequenters of the 'Harcourt Arms'. There is an exception to
be made to this, but most of the new streets initially
attracted 'middle class' families. The well-informed Builder
said in 1868 that the range of rents then current on the
Redcliffe Estate was £50–£160 per annum. (ref. 207) By 1871 the
big houses in Redcliffe Square were being built and in that
year The Builder gave the range of rents as from £46 (a
realistic figure, being the actual rent of No. 7 Cathcart Road
in 1879 (ref. 263) ) to a perhaps unrealistic £600 per annum. (ref. 264)
In 1872 Corbett and McClymont themselves advertised
houses at £80 to £300 per annum (ref. 265) and in 1873 The
Builder gave the range of rents as £50 to £400 per
annum. (ref. 266) The rival Building News reported a visit of the
Architectural Association to Redcliffe Square in the same
year. The opinion (whether its own or the Association's)
was that the houses 'while apparently well and substantially
built, are somewhat meretricious in design, although by no
means bad specimens of what wealthy people are content to
pay from £200 to £300 a year for.' (ref. 267) Corbett himself put
the range at £50 to £500 in 1877, the lower limit in Redcliffe
Square being £170. (ref. 268) In 1878 one house, No. 27
Redcliffe Square, was let at £465 per annum. (ref. 269)
The asking-price for the long leasehold of this same
large corner house in 1874 had been £6,000 (ref. 270) and for
the smaller No. 23 probably about £4,350. (ref. 271) In 1877
Corbett and McClymont claimed owners of their houses
could obtain twenty-two and a half to twenty-five years'
purchase of the improved ground rent when they sold
them. (ref. 272) Other actual sale-prices are mostly known for
the period of depression in the house-market that immediately followed: perhaps about £2,250–£3,350 in Redcliffe Square, £2,200–£2,900 in Redcliffe Gardens and
£1,900–£2,000 in Tregunter Road or The Little Boltons.
Houses in Redcliffe Road sold for £1,050 in 1879 and in
Finborough Road for £530 in 1880. (ref. 273) At the time of
Corbett and McClymont's bankruptcy in 1878 their
houses were said to be valued as assets from £500 to
£8,000 each. (ref. 274)
The range was thus wide, but did not reach quite down
to the area of mass-demand. At the time of the bankruptcy
and perhaps with reference to it The Estates Gazette said
that the keenest demand was, rather, for houses letting at
about £40 per annum. (ref. 275)
Occupants in 1871 and Later
The census of 1871 shows the modest and perhaps rather
strained respectability of two ordinary streets within the
Redcliffe Estate. (ref. 242) At 25 houses in Fawcett Street 87
members of the 'family' were attended by 32 resident
servants. None of the houses was in divided occupation,
but one was run by a lodging-house keeper and four others
had lodgers in them. At four houses resident servants were
dispensed with—perhaps a better arrangement than at
No. 19, where one young woman from Poplar served a
family of ten. A stockbroker, a wine merchant (without a
servant), a silk merchant, a bookseller, an art dealer, three
annuitants (one of them a lady of twenty-nine with three
servants), an officer's widow, six clerks or civil servants, a
'professor of languages', a twenty-two-year-old actress
living with one servant, a dressmaker, an elderly man who
gave his occupation as 'Navy Reserve' (and took in four
lodgers) and a policeman made up the twenty householders whose designation was recorded.
In Finborough Road most of the 57 houses then in
normal occupation were seemingly in the hands for which
they were intended, but there are perhaps some signs of a
misjudgement of the market. At the big houses, Nos.
2–14 (Plate 92d), the occupants included an artist and a
manufacturer (each with two servants), a rentier (with
three), a colonel in the army (two servants) and a billbroker (one servant), but also a servantless dressmaker and
three families in one house (No. 14). In all the houses 258
members of the 'family' were attended by 71 servants.
Four houses were in divided occupation, five were run by
lodging-house keepers, and twelve others had lodgers in
them. Thirteen houses were without servants. At two
houses a young female servant had ten of the family to look
after. At the ten houses from No. 139 northward, all in
undivided tenure, the householders gave their occupation
as 'Parson (C. of E.)', surgeon, 'dividends', lodging-house
keeper, secretary of Joint Stock Bank, colonel, 'boarding
house', builder's foreman, clerk and hardware traveller.
One of the bigger houses, No. 121 at the corner of
Redcliffe Square (now neighboured by post-war flats of
Kensington Borough), had not yet come into occupation,
but when it did Charles Appleyard of Lincoln's Inn,
esquire, had what sounds in an inventory of 1872 like a
very respectable home there of a traditional kind. There
was a servants' bedroom (with two beds), probably in the
basement, a dining-room, library and boudoir (with a
Kirkman piano in it) on the ground floor, a drawing-room
and two bedrooms on the first floor, more bedrooms and a
bathroom above, and a conservatory somewhere. All the
reception rooms had Brussels carpets, and the main rooms
furnishings and curtains en suite — in crimson rep
downstairs, blue rep in the upstairs drawing-room and
dimity in the bedrooms. The interior was shiny with a lot
of mahogany, mirror-glass, china and glass ornaments and
framed pictures. Outside there were 'fancy tile flowerboxes' at the windows. (ref. 276) Perhaps Mr. Appleyard felt his
house was not really in Finborough Road at all, like the
owner of another corner house at what was meant to be
No. 73 in that road, who changed his address to No. 54
Tregunter Road. (ref. 277)
In the latter road the Post Office Directory in 1880 shows
the houses of this phase seemingly filled up at a rather
wealthier level, with one person of title and four army
officers. That was the characteristic picture—two 'titles',
three officers (one a major-general), a clergyman, a Q.C.
and an architect in Redcliffe Gardens, for example. (ref. 135)
The architect was John Butler, architect to the Metropolitan Police, who was at No. 11 Redcliffe Gardens from
1870 to 1901, for many years with his son John Dixon
Butler, who held the same position and continued there
until 1907. Similarly at No. 62 Cathcart Road the architect Thomas Verity was the first occupant in 1868 until his
death in 1891, when his architect son Frank continued
there for another year. Other first or early occupants of
these houses were the architect Richard Popplewell Pullan
at No. 87 Harcourt Terrace in 1877–80, the decorative
artist Percy Macquoid briefly at No. 253 Old Brompton
Road in 1876 and the chronicler of art, Algernon Graves,
successively at No. 1 Redcliffe Place in 1871–2 and No.
51 Finborough Road in 1873–93. At the south end of
Finborough Road the first occupant of No. 2 in 1869–70
was Arthur Hughes and an early occupant of No. 7
opposite in 1875–83 Richard Doyle, in grim-looking
houses than which none could seem less suitable for the
painter of 'April Love' and the illustrator of 'In Faery
Land'. (ref. 135) Corbett and McClymont were not (any more
than the Godwins) suppliers of 'the Artist's House'.
Builders as Landlords
Corbett and McClymont's attitude to their estate was in
some respects, however, the opposite of perfunctory or
uninvolved. They were willing to sell leaseholds (or freeholds where they had them), but the statements of housevalues already noticed show how often the yearly lettable
value was what mattered. Corbett and McClymont were
the resident owners to a great many 'tenants'. (ref. 278) They
kept a sharp eye on such things as the uniform painting of
adjacent houses. (ref. 279) More than this, as extensive leasehold
owners, there was, compared with many large builders'
operations, a proprietorial element in their attitude, hinted
at in McClymont's reference to the 'independent gentleman'. After writing to Switzerland to entice a physician to
take up residence in Redcliffe Square in 1877, Corbett
confided to a friend, 'Entre nous there is a good opening
for a "good Man". We have only really two good men on
this large Estate.' (ref. 280) In 1874 he had felt able to assure a
Conservative backer of the firm that 'the majority of our
Tenants, to the number of I should think at least 600 will
vote for Mr Gordon', the Parliamentary candidate for
Chelsea. He added 'If all other districts are as Conservative as the "Redcliffe Estate" Mr Gordon's return is a
certainty'. (ref. 212) Writing to congratulate William Gordon on
his election he offered to help 'if at any time we can afford
you any information relative to the neighbourhood'. (ref. 281)
Corbett was involved with the Little Chelsea and West
Brompton Benevolent Society, (ref. 282) bought his beer from
the Hollywood Brewery (ref. 283) and used, among other banks,
one on their estate at No. 202 Fulham Road, the
London and South Western. (ref. 284) There was a note of pain
in his comment when houses were being auctioned off
after the bankruptcy: 'It is a cruel thing to see these sales
carried out by auctioneers of whom we know nothing, and
who do not take proper care of the premises'. (ref. 285) Corbett
had attended divine service at the Park Chapel in Chelsea
for some years, but this was pending the erection of the
long-projected church of St. Luke's, Redcliffe Square, on
their own estate. (ref. 286) When it was built he went there,
would report an 'excellent Sermon' to his partner, (ref. 287) and
was, with him, patron of the living for some eight or nine
years. (ref. 288) This addition to the amenities of the estate was
something in which Corbett and McClymont were, for
good or ill, deeply involved. The financing of the work,
which may have materially increased their troubles, is
described, with the building of the church, on pages 235–6.
Unprospering West Brompton
The exception to the actual or pretended gentility of the
Redcliffe Estate was Ifield Road. This was not particularly
apparent in the outward aspect of the houses, comparatively small though they were (Plate 87d). But in its
occupants the road was from the beginning mainly
plebeian. A sprinkling of 'run', 'gone' and 'excused' in the
ratebook for 1870 warns that Ifield Road was not the home
of affluence, and the census of 1871 confirms this. (ref. 289) In
94 houses there were 29 servants, 797 members of the
'family' and 153 other residents. In most streets nearby the
average number of occupants per house seems roughly
proportionate to the average size of the house but in Ifield
Road the density of occupation is noticeable, with ten or
eleven persons per house whereas in Finborough Road,
for example, where the houses are in general larger, the
number was six or seven. Comparatively few of the Ifield
Road houses were avowed lodging-houses, but this seems
to have been because its social level was below that, with
more than half the houses in divided occupation and
lodgers frequent in working-class homes. At two houses,
Nos. 74 and 85, there were 27 occupants, in four and five
separate families respectively. The most noticeable feature
of the population of the street was the proportion of heads
of families who worked in the building trades—66 out of
188 that are known. There were 21 who had work in
transport old and new—six coachmen, two carmen, two
cabmen, a cab-proprietor, two horsekeepers, three
omnibus drivers or conductors, and five railway employees
(two guards, a signalman, a clerk and a porter). Five were
butlers or valets, but to households elsewhere. Mechanical
technology accounted for only three—an engine-fitter, a
gas-fitter and a hot-water engineer: another was a wireworker. Only one was a 'professional man'—an architect,
Augustus Dempster, who shared No. 71 with two other
families (a railway guard's and a carpenter's) and himself
took in four lodgers. Another architect lived in the street,
G. V. McLellan, as the son of an out-of-work tailor who
took in a boarder and also shared No. 2 with a railway
porter and a mason's labourer.
In 1902 Charles Booth noticed Ifield Road as one of
the few exceptions to the generally decent level of prosperity in the area ('Some poor in Ifield Road, inhabited
mainly by artisans and labourers') and marked it on his
analytic map as 'poverty and comfort mixed'. (ref. 290) Its
'backwater' location, hemmed against the long wall of
Brompton Cemetery, perhaps told against it—the same
factor which has probably accounted for its very recent rise
in the world.
The rate at which the Redcliffe Estate's houses were
taken for occupation was satisfactory for some years. In
1871 The Builder said nearly all the completed houses were
let. (ref. 264) This seems to be more or less borne out down to
1870 (after which the test can no longer be applied) by the
comparison of the years in which house-carcases were
leased and those in which rates were first paid. There is a
tendency for the northern streets and northern ends of
streets to 'go' a little slower. Harcourt Terrace of 1867–8
and Westgate Terrace of 1869–71 seem, on the less certain
evidence of the Post Office Directory, to show a slowing-up,
and this was conspicuously the case in Redcliffe Square,
built 1868–76. (It was even more so with the houses of
1874–8 on the north side of Old Brompton Road.) It may
have been Corbett and McClymont that The Estates Gazette
had in mind when it said in 1878, a few days after their
bankruptcy, that 'one firm of builders in the neighbourhood of Kensington have houses unlet on their hands to
the value of £10,000 a year'. (ref. 275)
Thereafter the streets here, more than those in the
earlier-developed part, evinced decline in the last decades
of the century. It is particularly in the nineties that the
change declares itself in the Post Office Directory, although
this probably records belatedly an earlier change. In
Coleherne Road, Fawcett Street, Redcliffe Road and
Finborough Road particularly 'apartments' replace private
residences and other households cease to be noticed at all.
In 1902 Charles Booth thought the decline of parts of
West Brompton could be ascribed to the fact already
noted, that it was an area where the houses were built for a
richer class than was becoming willing to inhabit them. It
showed 'a failure on the part of ground landlords and
builders to appreciate the economic strength of the classes
who keep no servants and make no pretence to
fashion, . . . amongst whom are to be found every year a
larger proportion of the population. The mischief seems to
be an inevitable consequence of the construction of
property for which there is no sound demand . . .' (ref. 291)
Harcourt Terrace in 1900 had not, avowedly,
succumbed to apartments, but had been slow to fill. One
class for which this part of South Kensington seems to
have gained rather than lost attraction was the officer of
the armed services. In 1880 ten had lived in Tregunter
Road and five in Westgate Terrace. By 1900 they were
more noticeable in Harcourt Terrace (a general, two
colonels, a major and a captain). It was evidently not the
ramrod architecture of that street (more conventional than
others on the Redcliffe Estate) which attracted them, as
Redcliffe Square was also favoured, with seven officers.
The Methods and Bankruptcy of Corbett and
McClymont
On 4 May 1878 Corbett and McClymont suspended
payment. The immediate occasion seems to have been the
maturing of certain promissory notes, perhaps in particular
those of the incumbent of St. Luke's, Redcliffe Square
(see page 236). The verdict of The Building News at the
time on the general cause was simply that in South
Kensington 'they have over-built'. It spoke of empty
houses in one road 'which must have meant £200,000
lying idle'. (ref. 292) On 6 May The Times reported their joint
liabilities as an estimated £1,300,000 and their separate
liabilities as £65–70,000 (Corbett) and £45,000 (McClymont). (ref. 293) In February 1879 the Bankruptcy Court made
an order for the payment of 2s. 6d. in the £ to creditors of
the joint estate and 6d. in the £ to those of the separate
estates. (ref. 294) Much of their property in London and
elsewhere was sold off or passed into the hands of
mortgagees, but some remained to them. Corbett moved to
a narrower house at No. 57 Cathcart Road (Plate 87c) in
autumn 1878 and McClymont (not too cast down by his
misfortunes, however, to go to the 1879 Boat Race) moved
to a house at No. 318 King's Road, Chelsea, where in
1881 he called himself a 'retired builder'. (ref. 295) Corbett
obtained some income from a long-standing agency for the
Royal Insurance Company, through which the insurance
of all houses on the Redcliffe Estate had been effected. (ref. 296)
The firm remained at No. 2a Redcliffe Gardens (ref. 135)
administering what remained of its estate until the partnership was dissolved in c. 1880. (ref. 297) Alexander McClymont
disappears from King's Road after 1882. (Someone of
the same name, perhaps his son, was at No. 32 Cathcart
Road in 1891–8.) Corbett moved in 1882 or 1883 to No.
2 Redcliffe Gardens, next to the firm's old office, where
Corbett and Company continued until 1889 as 'builders',
although seemingly not house-builders. William Corbett
disappears after 1889 but his younger son, A. J. Corbett,
kept the firm going in the late nineties and then moved
with it to No. 19 Finborough Road until 1905. (ref. 135)
As has been noticed, in South Kensington Corbett and
McClymont's houses had all been built by the time of the
bankruptcy. Some finishing needed to be done, however,
and much of this work seems to have fallen to Aldin and
Sons. (One big house brought them a contract for
£1,500. (ref. 298) ) Corbett and McClymont's relations with rival
building firms are not known. Corbett had sent a circular
to Freake on behalf of at least one West Brompton
charity (ref. 282) and dispatched one of his sons with a polite
letter to Spicer asking him to subscribe to St. Luke's
Church. (ref. 299) With Aldins the relations were closer, perhaps
because of a common association with one of the bankers
at Coutts, W. G. Logan. (ref. 300) (Corbett interested Charles
Aldin in his estate at Westgate, for which Aldin negotiated
to supply him with bricks from a field at Slough, and where
the younger Charles Aldin had a house. (ref. 301) )
Something of the background of the bankruptcy is
revealed in copies of William Corbett's office out-letters,
which survive, with gaps, for the years 1870–80. Unfortunately, one of the gaps is from the end of March 1878 until
the bankruptcy on 4 May. The light thrown on the firm's
workings is further limited by a fact stated in one of
Corbett's later letters—'the practical part of our business
was conducted by Mr McClymont'. (ref. 302)
Corbett's detachment from the building process seems
to have been complete. His letters show little interest in
the design or planning of the product his firm was offering.
That this was more than scrupulosity in regard to his
partner is suggested by the paucity of such references in
the many letters concerned with his own estate at Westgate
(where McClymont, however, did have some involvement).
Nor did Corbett very much concern himself with salesmanship. The chief agents for the Redcliffe Estate seem to
have been Rogers and Chapman of Gloucester Road. At
least one general layout plan was publicized. (ref. 265) Particulars
and room-plans of some big houses which Corbett and
McClymont were especially anxious to be rid of were
prepared for circulation in 1880, but Corbett's comment to
the architect employed to make them that 'similar things I
find have been prepared and distributed by some of the
Builders of South Kensington for their large Houses' (ref. 303)
suggests the firm had not been very forward in using this
kind of inducement to customers.
The half of the firm represented by Corbett was
concerned solely, it seems, with financial management and
with the legal technicalities necessary to raise funds. In
Corbett the accountant (or ex-accountant) and the lawyer
both found a voice—he spoke in 1874 of his 'success in
life' being 'mainly due to the Legal profession and my
connection with it' and about that time he was joining the
Temple Club. (ref. 304)
It was presumably Corbett who would have been concerned to determine the apportionment of the building
leases between him, McClymont and both of them. Those
individually granted were thereupon sub-leased by each to
the other at an increased ground rent, thereby creating an
'improved ground rent', which could in turn be sold or
mortgaged. (ref. 305) In June 1877 Corbett said they had sold
upward of £200,000 of these. (ref. 306)
The prevailing rate of interest was one of Corbett's most
anxious concerns. In November 1873, for example, he was
deploring that 'Bank rate has today reached the enormous
figure of £9 per cent'. (ref. 307) (The 'prevailing' rate of interest
was not, however, as will be seen, a simple matter.) Its
importance was, of course, in the effect it had on Corbett's
main activity in the seventies, that is, raising money. If
Corbett abjured McClymont's 'practical' concerns he
often called on his partner to help obtaining new creditors
or persuading old ones to provide more funds ('Will you
see Price and get £2000 if you can' (May 1874), 'I hope
you have done some good today as to Cash' (June 1874),
'I hope you will do no end of good tomorrow re funds (July
1877) (ref. 308) ). In 1873 Corbett and McClymont do not seem,
in fact, to have had great difficulty in attracting creditors,
who were 'very civil' or even 'very civil indeed'. (Later, they
tended to be only 'pretty civil'.) (ref. 309) But the chase after
funds was energetic. In February 1874, for example—'I
saw Houseman, Jarrett, Weiss, Cole, Gabriel, Matthews,
Ingpen and Griffith Davies and Lewin; got on well at each
place and must not grumble at the days work' (ref. 310) (a day,
that is, at solicitors' offices, with one call on a bank
manager). One morning in June 1877 Corbett went from
Redcliffe Gardens to (another) bank manager in Old
Brompton Road at 9 o'clock, then to the Gunters' lawyer
Tomlin (perhaps at his house in Bolton Gardens rather
than at his office in Old Burlington Street), then back to
Redcliffe Gardens at 9.45 to see McClymont, then to
another solicitor (presumably at his office in Storey's Gate
rather than at his house in Bayswater), then back to
Redcliffe Gardens to meet a third solicitor at 11.30. (ref. 311)
Figure 67:
Architectural details from the area discussed in Chapter XII
The sources of funds were various and numerous. Some
money came from the Gunters via Tomlin, although in
other respects the relations with the ground landlords
seem to have been distant. In 1874 the firm had a loan
from Robert Gunter, who declined, however, to advance a
further £10,000 on a second mortgage, and Corbett was
hopeful of getting £5,000 that James Gunter would shortly
have for investment. (ref. 312) As has been seen, George Godwin
was an investor on a modest scale. Some private backers
occur. Lady Price, a widow, living in Lowndes Square, was
mortgagee of some houses in The Little Boltons (from
Spicer as well as from Corbett and McClymont) and
Redcliffe Gardens. (ref. 313) An E. L. Price, colourman of Ebury
Street, was also a backer, although a trade connexion is
possible there: (ref. 314) Alfred Waterman of Gracechurch
Street, timber merchant, and Henry Bingley, slate
merchant, were also lenders. (ref. 315)
Insurance companies seem not to have been much used.
The chief sources of money were solicitors and bankers,
and nearly two dozen solicitors occur in this role. The firm
of Lewin seems to have had an involvement at one time to
the extent of £50,000. (ref. 316) How far solicitors' money was
their own does not usually appear, although one, in Essex
Street, held mortgages to secure £27,700 'of which about
¾ths are Mr Cole's own money'. (ref. 317) The most important
firm in some respects was Farrer, Ouvry in Lincoln's Inn
Fields, whose contact with Corbett and McClymont was
through a partner, W. J. Jarrett. Farrer, Ouvry's importance was largely due to the fact that they acted for Coutts
and Company, a major source of funds. Coutts's contact
with Corbett and McClymont was more directly through
W. G. Logan. He, apart from being Corbett's next-door
neighbour in The Little Boltons, was closely connected
with Thomas Logan and Company, wine merchants, in
Buckingham Street, who supplied and perhaps ran the
hotel at Corbett's Westgate, and was himself an interested
resident there. (ref. 318) (Tomlin and the Lewins also had or took
houses at Westgate. (ref. 319) )
Coutts was not the only bank involved with Corbett and
McClymont. The National Bank at Grosvenor Gardens,
the Union Bank at Chancery Lane, and nearer home the
London and Provincial in Old Brompton Road and the
London and South Western in the Fulham Road were all
used for loans. Their managers were important people to
Corbett and McClymont. (The manager of the National
Bank was given the free use of a house at Westgate at
Christmas 1876. (ref. 320) ) None, however, was so important as
Coutts. The extent of Coutts's financial commitment does
not appear, but in 1874 was sufficiently large for Corbett
to be anxious to satisfy one of the partners that he was a
sound man even in the matter of party politics. (ref. 212) And it
was Coutts who were sufficiently involved to take active, if
ineffectual, steps to protect their stake in the firm. In
February 1878 they evidently asked an estate agent and
surveyor to report on the firm's progress (perhaps in
building at Surbiton) when another large loan was under
discussion on the security of this new work. One of the
partners was sufficiently concerned to go and see for
himself. Corbett wrote to McClymont: 'From a whisper I
heard I think Mr Ryder [later the fourth Earl of
Harrowby, of Coutts] and Mr Jarrett [of Farrer,
Ouvry] will be down when not expected. Pray keep a
sharp look out and see that all outside is going on
properly.' (ref. 321) Rather in the manner of an 'institutional
shareholder' nowadays Coutts also put in an accountant to
inspect the firm's books. (ref. 322) This was W. F. Marreco of
Marreco and Gilbert, whose name introduces the final
phase. In the same month the manager of the London and
Provincial bank refused the offer of some property
(probably at Westgate) as security for the continuation of a
loan of £1,000. Corbett paid the loan off and closed the
account with a dignified letter. (ref. 323) But the charge of debt
could no longer be kept at bay and on 4 May 1878
Marreco exchanged his role as 'company doctor' for that of
receiver for and manager of a firm in liquidation.
As to the cause of failure, Corbett wrote immediately
afterwards to a solicitor who was one of the firm's creditors
(perhaps with a touch of malice in the apparent naivety)
that 'Messrs Coutts and Co. who have assisted us very
largely, found great fault when they discovered we had
been paying interest exceeding five per cent, but there
were others besides yourself, to whom we had been paying
a similar rate'. (ref. 324) It is evident from Corbett's letters that
since at least the beginning of the year he had been striving
hard to rearrange the firm's credit on the basis of
long-term mortgages and that this conventional method
had by no means been the staple of its borrowing. (ref. 325)
Much of the money had been raised not by first or second
mortgages but by a complication of short-term loans, often
on the security of the deposit of title-deeds and at a high
rate of interest. (ref. 326) In January 1878, for example, he had
to ask for £250 for three or four months at seven and a
half per cent, but arranged for £2,000 on mortgage at
four-and-a-half per cent. (ref. 327) As Corbett told his 'confidential clerk' in that month, with an eye to Coutts's
investigation, 'every effort must be made to clear off
temporary loans and make permanent mortgages'. (ref. 328)
Figure 68:
Nos. 11–27 (odd) Redcliffe Square, site and house plans, elevations and details. George and Henry Godwin, architects, 1872–3
The hazards of money-raising were increased by a
falling-off in the demand for the wares Corbett and
McClymont were offering and, probably, a rise in costs. In
summer 1877 Corbett was complaining of the high cost of
materials and labour. (ref. 329) The firm's obduracy against
wage-demands has been noticed and possibly explains
Corbett's dislike, expressed in 1875, of the London School
Board and its 'mania' for building: (ref. 330) perhaps this spoilt
the labour-market. And demand which in 1873 was still
good was evidently declining in 1877.
Houses in a range on the west side of Redcliffe Square
had, Corbett said, been valued at £3,000 when built in
1873 or 1875. (ref. 331) The asking price of one in 1877 was
£2,625 (ref. 332) and of another in 1880, after the bankruptcy,
£2,250. (The offer of £1,600 for the latter brought
Corbett as near as he came to boiling-point—'Whoever
makes this offer can be no well wisher to us or our Estate,
in fact it is neither more nor less than an insult'.) (ref. 333) A
house on the south side, valued at about £4,350 when built
in 1874, was on offer at £3,350 in 1880. (ref. 334) (Even more
difficulty was found with the big houses of 'Bolton
Gardens West' on the north side of Old Brompton Road.)
A year after the bankruptcy the depression in the house
market was such that Corbett was able to persuade the
trustee for a bankrupt creditor that properties on the
Redcliffe Estate which had been made security, by second
mortgages, for £8,000 would not sell at auction even at
their reduced estimated value of £4,800 and successfully
offered £4,000 to discharge the mortgage. Characteristically Corbett and McClymont had to borrow £3,500 of this
from another lawyer. (ref. 335) Elsewhere, the deeds of properties on which a customer of the Union Bank had advanced
money had been lodged with the bank and then transferred, with the loan, to T. E. Lewin. But the brute fact
was that in April 1879, as Corbett confessed, the properties were 'not of sufficient value to pay the amount due
upon them'. (ref. 336) In these circumstances Corbett was at a
loss: 'the sad misfortune which befell us', he wrote to W.
G. Logan in May 1879, 'was from no fault of mine; and the
most terrible depression of property which has happened,
not only on our Estate, but also in the neighbourhood, I
could not possibly avoid'. (ref. 337)
So far as Corbett's letters suggest, personal inadequacy
(other than sickness — both he and McClymont had
gout (ref. 338) ) was probably not a major element in the failure.
The Builder in 1870 had praised Corbett's 'energy and
clear-headedness', (ref. 339) and his letters are lucid, measured
and concise. Neither he nor (so far as the letters suggest)
his partner was idle. Corbett wrote twenty-nine letters, for
example, on Boxing Day 1877 (ref. 340) and sixty-one on 4 and 5
April 1879 (very few of them merely as routine). (ref. 341) And it
is evident that in its complicated dealings the firm at least
thought it knew what it was doing. Its straightforwardness
is less easy to judge. After the bankruptcy Corbett was
seemingly guilty of at least disingenuousness when in
November 1879 he tried to sell No. 26 Redcliffe Mews to
a fellow-builder with the prospect of its use as a tavern a
week after he had told the Union Bank there was 'no chance
whatever of a licence'. (ref. 342)
The wide range of the partners' activities does not seem
to have helped the firm. The Westgate estate was not
greatly prospering in 1877 (and early in 1878 Corbett sold
such of his land there as was still undeveloped). The firm
had building interests on Robert Gunter's land in Fulham,
and on other estates in Surbiton, Putney and Croydon.
To some extent the firm seems to have recognized the
situation, if belatedly. There are signs of retrenchment in
its activities in 1877. (ref. 343) But the leasehold system did not
make this easy for builders who had to meet legal commitments in regard to their property, and this difficulty must
have been greater for firms which, like Corbett and
McClymont, had little or no business as contractors to fall
back upon.
Perhaps in an attempt to move with the times, Corbett
had been interesting himself early in 1877 in buying 'good
Red Bricks' (ref. 344) —a commodity not much used on the
Redcliffe Estate. This apparent recognition came too late
to help there, where the firm was trying in the late
seventies to dispose of houses built in strong versions of
the 'style' of the late sixties. It was unfortunate for the firm
that the phasing of the Redcliffe Estate, presumably in
some measure at the behest of Tomlin and the Godwins,
saddled it in a difficult market not with its more modest
and muted houses but, in Redcliffe Square and on the
north side of Old Brompton Road, with some of its biggest
and least appetizing.