CHAPTER XII - The Work of Ernest George and Peto in Harrington
and Collingham Gardens
Harrington and Collingham Gardens hold a special place
in the history of the London house. Here, amidst acres
of humdrum middle-class housing, sprang up two small
developments which represent the extreme point of late-Victorian architectural individualism. These twenty-nine
dwellings, Nos. 20–26 (even) and 35–45 (odd) Harrington
Gardens and Nos. 1–18a Collingham Gardens, were built
between 1880 and 1888. They are all from the designs of
Ernest George and Peto, a firm which elaborated a rich
and novel domestic architecture by grafting motifs from
the old urban dwellings of northern Europe upon the stock
of the plainer Queen Anne style. No bolder or better-preserved examples of this short-lived style remain than
these handsome and picturesque houses (Plates 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85
figs. 75–81 and folded drawing opposite).
Figure 75:
Nos. 20–26 (even) and 35–45 (odd) Harrington Gardens.
Based on the Ordnance Survey of 1894–6
Like the Flemish and German street fronts which they
imitate, the restless outline and varying materials of the
houses hint that they were erected in casual but emulous
sequence by individuals. In fact they belong firmly to the
tradition of organized speculative development. In Harrington Gardens several houses were indeed built for
special clients. But both schemes owe their success to welltried methods of collaboration between estate owner,
builder and architect, and exhibit as many underlying
qualities of uniformity as they do superficial signs of
variety.
The story of these developments starts in Harrington
Gardens on the Alexander estate. In 1874 the experienced
builder John Spicer agreed with H. B. Alexander to
develop a large take of land around Harrington Gardens
(see page 179). This plan envisaged continuous development along the road's south side west of Ashburn Place.
Opposite, on the north side, were to be just two pairs of
houses, one at the corner with Ashburn Place and the other
at the corner with Colbeck Mews. Between and behind
these, on part of some land for which another building
firm, Charles and William Aldin, had made a similar agreement, a communal garden was to serve tenants on both
sides of the street, since the Gunter estate abutted close
behind the intended houses on the south side and no
garden there could be guaranteed. (ref. 1)
Neither Spicer nor the Aldins had made any progress
with the section of their takes west of Ashburn Place by
March 1880. H. B. Alexander gave them extensions of
time, but in due course they must have sub-let their interests here. Later that year, new agreements were made for
building the four houses planned on the north side (the
future Nos. 20, 22, 24 and 26 Harrington Gardens) with
Robert Palmer Harding of Queen's Gate and of Harding,
Whinney and Company, accountants. (ref. 2)
Harding was doubtless acting in conjunction with the
eventual builders of these and nearly all the other houses,
Peto Brothers. This firm, whose operations were confined
to the years 1872 to 1891, had several antecedents and connections germane to these developments. It was the building business of the sons of Sir Samuel Morton Peto, the
great mid-Victorian public works contractor. Despite his
failure in 1867, Peto seems to have retained much of his
prosperity and his sons were comfortably brought up. Peto
Brothers was started by two of them, William Herbert Peto
and Morton Kelsall Peto. Both in due course retired from
direction of the firm (M. K. Peto being replaced by Basil
Edward Peto), but W. H. Peto continued his interest in
Collingham Gardens and plainly had the biggest personal
stake in the whole speculation.William Herbert Peto and
another son, Samuel Arthur Peto (lessee of No. 24 Harrington Gardens), were both married to daughters of R. P.
Harding. The lessee of No. 22 Harrington Gardens,
Edward Vaughan Morgan of the Morgan Crucible Company, was also connected to the Peto family. (ref. 3)
Most vital of all for the character of the development
was a fifth brother, Harold Ainsworth Peto (1854–1933).
Having been trained in both building and architecture,
Harold Peto in 1875 when aged only twenty-one became
a partner with Ernest George, an architect with a growing
reputation for advanced domestic design. The arrangement lasted until 1892, when Peto retired prematurely. It
proved so successful and prolific that it put Ernest George
and Peto among the foremost late-Victorian domestic
architects. George, it is usually accepted, was the senior
and more significant partner in matters of design; but
Harold Peto is known to have been skilled in decoration
and, later on at least, in landscaping. He also gave the firm
many valuable social contacts as well as connections with
the building world. As the link between Ernest George
and Peto Brothers, Harold Peto is central to the development of Harrington and Collingham Gardens. He lived
in houses of special elaboration in Collingham Gardens,
No. 9 in 1885–9 and No. 7 in 1889–92.
The four houses agreed for by Harding in 1880
(Nos. 20–26) having been begun by Peto Brothers to
designs by Ernest George and Peto, they in 1881 turned
their attention to the south side of Harrington Gardens.
Here they decided to build six large and ornate houses
for individual clients. These (now Nos. 35–45) were to be
contiguous but not arranged in a formal terrace. They were
to have broad fronts, since the depth of plot to the boundary behind with the Gunter estate was small; this allowed
special treatment for the façades. The first client was
Walter R. Cassels, who in November 1881 agreed to build
No. 35 as a speculation and the larger No. 37 for himself.
These houses were erected, following tenders, by the
builders Stephens and Bastow. Next in 1882–3 came
No. 39 for the celebrated dramatist W. S. Gilbert, and
No. 41 for Henry Coke, again both built by Stephens and
Bastow; appropriately, No. 39 remains the most flamboyant and best-loved of the group. The last two houses,
Nos. 43 and 45 (1882–4) were built by Peto Brothers for
individual clients but as investments. They are therefore
less ornate but have special plans and elevations.
In 1883 Ernest George and Peto with Peto Brothers
built six stables on the north side of Colbeck Mews (Plate
96c), presumably meant for Nos. 35–45 Harrington
Gardens. (ref. 4) Work also now began on the larger but more
compact project of Collingham Gardens, a short distance
to the west on the Gunter estate. It was put about that
‘the architects having received many applicants for the
purchase of the houses built in Harrington Gardens, which
having been carried out for various clients were not for
sale, suggested to Messrs. Peto Bros., the contractors, to
take one of the few remaining open sites available as an
investment, after the manner of those in Harrington
Gardens. Some of the houses will consequently be for sale,
others are built for private orders.’ (ref. 5) The site appears to
have come to them because of the death in January 1883
of John Spicer, who had evidently agreed with Robert
Gunter to build here. (ref. 6) It was a simple rectangle bounded
on the east by Collingham Road and imposed no special
conditions upon the shape of the development. The houses
were divided into equal groups facing east and west; the
strip of ground between them was laid out as an ornamental garden and left open at the ends (Plate 79b, fig. 76).
Figure 76:
Nos. 1–18 Collingham Gardens. Based on the Ordnance
Survey of 1894–6
Building operations in Collingham Gardens ran
smoothly from 1883 to 1888, and high-quality stabling was
erected at the same time on the north side of Hesper
Mews. (ref. 7) The two ranges were built from south to north,
with the eastern sector slightly preceding the western one.
A general design for both ranges probably existed from
1883 but was adapted as work proceeded.
In Harrington Gardens, where the speculative element
was not great, Peto Brothers appear to have done well.
On the north side, Nos. 20–22 cost about £18,000 the pair
to build, and the smaller Nos. 24–26 about £11,000; (ref. 8) a
little later, No. 43 opposite was available for £11,000,
while No. 45 fetched 10,000 guineas. (ref. 9) By the end of 1884
all George and Peto's houses in Harrington Gardens were
in occupation. Collingham Gardens by contrast, despite
its equal aesthetic merits, appears not to have been such
a happy experience. Peto Brothers enjoyed no quick success here in securing individual clients. Only five of their
nineteen dwellings were leased directly, and several of
these customers may have been investors rather than
potential residents. The remainder were assigned to W. H.
Peto, ten of them in August 1888. (ref. 10) All were under ninety-nine-year leases running from March 1883. Several houses
remained empty for some years; No. 1 is an example, built
in 1884, leased to Peto in 1885, offered on the market for
£16,500 (a very high price), sub-let on long term in 1886
but apparently not permanently inhabited until 1890. (ref. 11) All
this was a warning that in the later 1880s the market for
the smart upper-class town-house was a waning one, especially in far-flung Kensington. Flats were the coming
thing, and nothing like Collingham Gardens would ever
be seen again. Peto Brothers never went in for another
speculation of this kind, and it is perhaps not a coincidence
that the firm gave up building altogether in 1891.
Figure 77:
Nos. 35 and 77 Harrington Gardens, elevation. Ernest George and Peto, architects, 1881–3
The style and architectural co-ordination of the two
developments, at first sight a jumble of vernacular motifs
from every country in northern Europe, fall on examination into a narrow range of effects. All display the usual
accoutrements of the Victorian Domestic Revival in architecture, having red-brick or terracotta facings, big bays,
chimneys and gables, wood-framed casements (sometimes
in pairs without central fixed mullions), leaded lights and
high tiled roofs. The earliest houses, Nos, 20–26, Harrington Gardens, adhere to the relative reticence of the
indigenous Queen Anne style. This is thrown to the winds
in Nos. 35–45, where the stamp of the great mercantile
town mansions of Amsterdan, Bruges, Ghent, Haarlem,
Lubeck and many another picturesque European port is
plain to behold. Both Ernest George and Harold Peto had
seen and sketched many such houses, but in no case was
an exact precedent imitated. The central houses (Nos. 39,
41 and 43) have dominating gables covering most of each
frontage, stepped, curved and straight respectively. At one
end Nos. 35 and 37 are composed as one, stand back a
little behind a forecourt and have projecting wings; at the
other extremity No. 45 is treated in a chaster Jacobethan
manner and has its roof-ridge parallel to the street (Plate
76a, 76b).
Clever though the treatment was, it did not meet with
universal aproval. When George exhibited a drawing for
Harrington Gardens at the Royal Academy in 1883 (Plate
76b), The Builder grumbled: ‘Old streets do occasionally
assume this kind of appearance of pieces of buildings in
ever so many different manners all muddled together and
they have a picturesque suggestiveness then, but to go
about to make this kind of thing deliberately is child's
play.’ (ref. 12)
The gamut of styles is not much extended in Collingham Gardens, though some houses there (Nos. 7, 12
and 12a) are fronted entirely in terracotta. Two (Nos. 4
and 5) follow the lead of Nos. 35 and 37 Harrington
Gardens in being grouped around a shallow court; others
(Nos. 1, 9 and 17) explore the Costwold vernacular of
Nos. 45 Harrington Gardens: more (Nos. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12
and 12A) display some form of the tall elaborated gable
so spectacularly used at Nos. 39–43 Harrington Gardens.
There is particular sign of new thinking in the elevations
of some later houses along the western range, Nos. 14, 15,
16, 18 and 18a.
A pleasing aspect in both developments is the architectural treatment of the backs. These are unencumbered
with outbuildings, usually quite symmetrical and simple,
and most frequently drawn together under a tall central
gable. Tile-hanging, slate-hanging or the contrast between
red facing bricks and London stocks performs the function
supplied by ornament on the fronts.
The interiors generally eschew the orthodoxy of the
ordinary upper-class house plan of the time without straying far from a clever set of formulae. In Harrington
Gardens (fig. 79), Nos. 20–26 were each equipped with a
drawing-room (with two bays), a library and a dining-room on the ground floor. The smaller pair had billiard-roods in the basement, the larger ones in the attic, and
No. 24 had an inglenook to the dining-room. (ref. 8) In all the
houses the stairs are of oak and there is much dark panelling contrasting with stone chimneypieces, white
ornamental ‘strapwork’ celings and stamped leather or
otherwise ‘aesthetic’ wall coverings. In style the decoration
borrows from almost every school and epoch of the early
northern Renaissance; it is most lavish on the highly carved friezes and arches of fireplaces. Often there are small
panels of Holbeinesque painted glass and the porches have
mosaic floors. The most richly finished houses here are
Nos. 35–45, egregiously W. S. Gilbert's No. 39. Some
houses (Nos. 35 and 37) have drawing-rooms on the first
floor, but in general the broad-gabled style of house made
upper rooms poky and brought the best bedrooms down
to this level.
Collingham Gardens offers a slightly wider variety of
plans (figs. 80–1). Some houses, like No, I with its thirtyfour-foot hall, are as generous as those of Harrington
Gardens but others are smaller. Harold Peto's own first
house, No. 9, dispenses with back stairs and has only two
reception rooms, while some of the later houses, for
instance No. 14, seem simpler and perhaps never enjoyed
a high degree of internal finishing. Many plans here have
been altered and the interiours converted into flats.
Several of the clients and first residents of both sets of
houses were already living in South Kensington, often in
houses no more than twenty years old. But it would be
idle to assume that their alacrity to move was due to any
special affection for the style of the development or dislike
of stucco Italianate houses. No obviously aesthetic taste
can be detected in any of the early tenants, with the possible exceptions of W. S. Gilbert and W. R. Cassels.
The publicity accorded to these houses in the architectural journals of the time includes some few details about
the craftsmen who collaborated with Peto Brothers on
those houses and about the materials used. At No. 39 Harrington Gardens, Lavers and Westlake supplied the
stained glass, J. Starkie Gardner the ornamental brass
panels fronting the radiators, and Howard and Sons
carried out some decorations; (ref. 13) at No. 9 Collingham
Gardens the ‘art metalwork’ was by Ellis and Rice, (ref. 14) while
Jeffrey and Company supplied fashionable wallpapers at
No. 39 Harrington Gardens and Nos. 1 and 4 Collingham
Gardens. (ref. 15) As for materials, red Suffolk facings were specified in Harrington Gardens, but the cheaper Acton bricks
were used in Collingham Gardens. Here, in contrast to
Harrington Gardens, there is a liberal sprinkling of terracotta supplied by Doultons, with whom the Petos enjoyed
a business link in the mid 1880s. (ref. 16) Most of the houses were
coursed in standard brickwork but a few special ones are built with two-inch bricks.
Harrington Gardens
No. 20 (formerly No. 49) and No. 22 (formerly No. 48).
This pair of houses at the corner of Ashburn Place (Plate
75b) occupies the eastern of the two plots north of the
roadway agreed for by John Spicer in 1874. A new agreement for the site was made by H. B. Alexander with (Sir)
Robert Palmer Harding in August 1880, and building took
place in 1881–2 with Peto Brothers as builders. The leases
were granted to the first residents, at No. 20 Harding himself, previously of No. 88 Queen's Gate, and at No. 22
Edward Vaughan Morgan of No. 1 Onslow Square.
Together the houses cost about £18,000. Besides the usual
dining-room, library and drawing-room on the ground
floor, billiard-rooms were supplied at the tops of the
houses. (ref. 17) The fronts are of red brick with only a few stone
dressings; the style is Queen Anne not especially
elaborated, with shaped gables (one now altered). The
entrances are from projecting porches at the ends. The
original row of four two-storey bay windows towards Harrington Gardens has been defaced by the curtailing of the
central bays to a single storey. The houses underwent conversion into flats in 1978–9.
Figure 78:
Nos. 39 and 41 Harrington Gardens, elevation. Ernest George and Peto, architects, 1882–3
No. 24 (formerly No. 47) and No. 26 (formerly No. 46).
These houses at the corner of Colbeck Mews were agreed
for with Robert Palmer Harding in November 1880 and
built by Peto Brothers in 1881–2 (Plate 75a). The original
lessees and occupants were Samuel Arthur Peto at No. 24
and Arthur Ryle Harding at No. 26, respectively son-in-las and son of R. P. Harding. This was the smaller pair
of houses and cost some £11,000. Billiard-rooms were
planned in the basements instead of the attics, the porches
were internal and the fronts were less articulated. Otherwise the arrangements (fig. 79) and style corresponded to
those at Nos. 20 and 22. (ref. 18) An early photograph of the
drawing-room at No. 24 shows the florid detailing and aesthetic wallpaper typical of the development (Plate 82a).
The houses were converted to flats in 1978–9.
No. 35 (formerly No. 17) and No. 37 (formerly No. 18).
These were the first houses built on the south side of Harrington Gardens to designs by Ernest George and Peto.
They followed an agreement of November 1881 made by
H. B. Alexander with Walter Richard Cassels of Queen's
Gate, a literary gentleman and sceptical theologian whose
independent means derived from the East India trade.
Both houses proceeded immediately, were finished in
about 1883 and leased to Cassels in June 1884. (ref. 19) They were
built after competitive tender (from which Peto Brothers
were excluded) by Stephens and Bastow of Bristol; their
estimate came to £12,768, but the contract was later put
at £13,272. (ref. 20) Cassels himself elected to live in the larger
No. 37 and let No. 35 to Archibald David Robertson, a
friend from the Bombay civil service and previously his
neighbour in Queen's Gate. Cassels moved to No. 43 Harrington Gardens nearby in 1892.
Conceived as a single composition on a seventeenth-century Dutch of German model, the houses stand back
from the road behind handsome iron railings and a paved
forecourt, destined originally to hold myrtles and other
plants in tubs (Plate 76a, fig. 79). Two bulky and asymmetrical wings project from a central core with a high hipped roof. Tiers of tall leaded casements dominate the front.
The wing of No. 35 incorporates a vigorously modelled
chimneybreast, whereas that of No. 37 depends upon
windows alone. The backs are plain but elegant, with the
chimneys and hipped roof prominent. The facing
materials are red Suffolk bricks with a few terracotta panels
on the front.
The interior of No. 35 contains well-preserved and typical features, such as turned wooden balusters and arches
to the stairs, much panelling and ornamental fireplaces.
The drawing-room overlooks the street from the first floor.
Cassels’ house, No. 37, is more elaborate. The oak staircase has carved wooden panels instead of balusters and
incorporates beasts on the newel posts and at the foot.
There are also painted glass panels and repouse reliefs
in front of the radiators, both like those supplied at No. 39.
The long drawing-room (here on the ground floor at the
back) has a rich hooded stone fireplace at one end and lively
strapwork ornament to the ceiling. The original colours
were grey-green for the panelling and a green and gold
paper above. The dining-room also survives in good condition on this floor, but Cassels’ handsome library on the
first floor (Plate 82b) has been partitioned. In the outer
porch, a sgraffito panel depicts scenes of life in Merry
England.
No. 39 (formerly No. 19). Special interest attaches to
this house, built for the dramatist William Schwenk
Gilbert. Since 1876 Gilbert and his wife had been living
at No. 24 The Boltons. By tradition it was the money he
made from the Gilbert and Sullivan operatta Patience (Produced in 1881–2) that induced him to build here. By
March 1882 he and Henry Coke, the client for No. 41,
were negotiating for sites with H. B. Alexander and John
Spicer, the original taker of the ground. Harold Peto,
whom Gilbert addresses without prefix in a letter of that
date, was the probable intermediary. (ref. 21) Stephens and
Bastow, contractors for Nos. 35 and 37, began building
in May 1882 (ref. 22) Gilbert warned them he would move in
in October 1883 ‘in whatever condition the premises may
be’ and reckon demurrage from that date. This he seems
to have done, for in November Sir Theodore and Lady
Martin and J. A. Froude ‘seeing only open doors and
workmen’ and thinking this the prettiest of the new houses
ventured to look in and were startled to find Gilbert in
occupation. (ref. 23)
The façade partakes of a hearty flamboyance unexampled in previous town houses but perfectly suited to its
owner (Plates 76b, 77a, 77b, fig. 78). A great stepped gable
in nineteen stages surmounted by a ship controls the broad
front, the latter interrupted by the staircase window and
porch. The ship alluded to Gilbert's supposed descent
from Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the Elizabethan seafarer, not
to H.M.S. Pinafore, as at least one innocent supposed
(Gilbert: ‘Sir, I do not put my trademark on my house’). (ref. 24)
The materials are red brick with stone dressings and there
is leadwork to all the windows. Massive chimneybreasts
occupy the sides, that to the west being engaged with the
structure of No. 41. The back is symmetrical, with double-story tile-hung bays beneath and enveloping gable and a
sundial in the centre (Plate 78).
Inside, the oak-panelled hall includes a floor-to-ceiling
chimneypiece in carved stone fronting a blue-tiled
inglenook in which Gilbert hung his hams (Plate 84b)
Here also are panels of Holbeinesque painted glass supplied by Lavers and Westlake, but the stamped leather
paper by Jeffrey and Company has gone. The oak stairs
have steps made of single blocks and S-shaped balusters.
The doors to the ground-floor rooms display suitable
whimsical mottoes. (fn. a) The dining-room, originally decorated by Howard and Sons, has a wooden overmantel and
a ceiling with small gilt-edged panels between beams
which rest on merrily carved corbels. The drawing-room
at the back (Plate 84a) has a strapwork ceiling and hooded
alabaster chimneypiece at the end as in No. 35, but here
the fireplace is more richly sculpted ‘after the manner of
the sixteenth century’ and the panelling is lower and of
rosewood. Starkie Gardner's brass repousse panels serve
as radiator grilles. Upstairs, the boudoir was at half-landing level. On the first floor were a billiard-room (again
once decorated by Howard and Sons) and Gilbert's oak-panelled study or library. The study retains its corner fireplace, high pabelling and leather paper (originally coloured
red and gold). Higher up were plentiful guest rooms,
but Beatrix Potter's gossip of December 1883 that the
house contained ‘twenty-six bedrooms with a bath-room
to each (fancy twenty-six burst water pipes)’ was wholly
fantastic. (ref. 25)
Figure 79:
Nos. 24, 26, 35, 37 and 41 Harrington Gardens, plans. Ernest George and Peto, architects, 1880–4
From the first, Gilbert installed electric lighting. In July
1883 he sought an estimate from R. E. Crompton and
Company for installing Swan lamps. Seventy-seven were
supplied, fifty-three for flexible pendants and twenty-four
for brackets, with twenty-three extra because early filaments frequently broke. Power came from an eight-horsepower Crossley gas engine mediated through a
Crompton-Burgin dynamo. Crompton's estimate came to
just over £600. (ref. 26)
In 1890 Gilbert removed to Grim's Dyke, Harrow
Weald (where Ernest George and Peto made alterations
for him) and sold this house. It has been well cared for
since.
No.41 (formerly No. 20). This house was built by
Stephens and Bastow in 1882–3 along with No. 39, to
which it is superficially joined and with which it shares
stylistic elements. It is smaller than its neighbour, having
a frontage of only thirty-nine feet. It cost about £6,000
to build. The client was the Hon. Henry John Coke (son
of the first Earl of Leicester) who negotiated for this site
in tandem with W. S. Gilbert at No. 39. (ref. 27) ‘When Mr.
Gilbert built his house in Harrington Gardens he easily
persuaded us to build next door to him,’ recollected Coke
in his autobiography. He received his lease in July 1884. (ref. 28)
The front of Coke's house (Plates 76b, 77b, fig. 78)
coheres well with Gilbert's despite the different levels. The
brickwork, blocked stone dressings, decorative tie-bars,
leaded lights, triple-storey porch and arched stone
balustrade to the area are similar, but the gable is shaped
not stepped, and is broken into by a chimney. The back
elevation is like that of No. 39. The interior (fig. 79) conforms to the style of George and Peto's other houses here.
The most attractive room is at the back on the ground
floor, where the arch to the carved stone inglenook displays
dancing putti in a frieze (Plate 83a).
No. 43 (formerly No. 21). An agreement for this site
was entered into in May 1882 by Robert Owen White of
No. 180 Cromwell Road and Gestingthorpe Hall, Essex,
and Peto Brothers built the house in 1882–3, probably as
a speculation on White's behalf. Ernest George and Peto
told a prospective purchaser in April 1883 that it was available for £11,000. The first occupant, William Waring of
Taverham Hall, Norfolk, obtained the head lease in April
1884. (ref. 29) Walter Cassels, previously resident at No. 37 Harrington Gardens, moved here in 1892.
At forty-eight feet, the breadth of No. 43 is almost as
great as that of No. 39 and its front is spanned by a
similarly wide gable, but in other respects it is simpler
(Plates 76b, 77c). It depends for decoration on moulded
brickwork in the North German manner rather than on
stone dressings, and its casements have wooden bars rather
than leaded lights. At the back there is a substantial central
projection beneath a tile-hung gable. The interior, through
perhaps less highly finished than others in the group, had
an ample staircase, a panelled inglenook in the hall and
an end-to-end drawing-room of characteristic elaboration
at the back (Plate 83b). The house is now in flats.
No. 45 (formerly No. 22). This large house, the last of
those designed by Ernest George and Peto here, breaks
from the pattern of its eastern neighbours by adopting a
more English or Jacobethan style and by having a high
roofline parallel to the street. Along its front, which is of
the usual brick with stone dressings, three square bays
alternate with two small gabled recessions (Plates 76b,
77d).
Agreement for the site was made in May 1882 with William George Logan, a banker intimately connected with
speculative building in South Kensington. The house was
not apparently erected by Peto Brothers until 1882–4. (ref. 30)
At one stage Harold Peto may have intended to live here,
but in the event it was sold in January 1884 to Henry
Pochin for 10,000 guineas and first occupied later that year
by his daughter and son-in-law Charles Benjamin Bright
McLaren, M.P., later first Lord Aberconway, who lived
here until 1900. (ref. 31) Harold Peto was subsequently connected
with other projects of the McLaren family. The house was
handsomely planned, with a dining-room towards the
front and a high-panelled, roomy drawing-room complete
with deep inglenook and oriel over at the back. It has been
converted into flats.
Figure 80:
Nos. 1, 8 and 17 Collingham Gardens, plans. Ernest George and Peto,
architects, Peto Brothers, builders, 1884–8
Collingham Gardens
Nos. 1-18 Collingham Gardens, elevations.
No. 1 is a large house of 1884, ‘English in its composition
and detail’, (ref. 5) at the corner of Bolton Gardens and
Collingham Gardens. The British Architect reported in
1886 that it was ‘styled the House of the Seven Gables’. (ref. 32)
It is built of thin bricks with buff terracotta dressings and
has small straight gables and bay windows (Plate 80c).
Within, there is a generous oak-panelled hall thirty-four
feet long with a stone chimney, and a pleasant staircase
with painted glass in the skylight. The main reception
rooms were planned on the ground floor, but on the level
above George and Peto provided a room which could be
used either as a library or a bedroom, according to taste
(fig. 80). The house boasted drainage, plumbing and ventilation up to the smartest contemporary standards,
including ‘shampooing apparatus’ in the bathroom and
lavatory. A long lease was to be had for £16,500, or it could
be rented for £1,000 per annum. (ref. 32) Despite its attractions,
it does not seem to have found an early occupant. The
lease was granted to W. H. Peto in 1885 and the house
may not have been lived in until about 1890, when
Edwin Tate of the well-known sugar firm took up
residence. (ref. 33)
Nos. 2 and 3 were built together as an informal pair, both
having shaped gables, chequerwork stone dressings, casements with wooden sash-bars, and decorative iron ties
(Plate 79c). They were erected in 1883–4; No. 3, probably
the first house in Collingham Gardens to be occupied, was
leased to its first resident, Alexander MacGregor, in
March 1884, while No. 2 was taken from W. H. Peto by
William H. Chesebrough, an American manufacturer of
vaseline preparations, in 1885. (ref. 34) Originally the front gables
of the houses differed substantially, but at an early date
No. 3 was raised to allow more bedrooms and its gable
given much the same shape as that on No. 2.
Nos. 4 and 5 form another pair of houses, this time
arranged much like Nos. 35 and 37 Harrington Gardens,
with asymmetrical projecting wings and a centre set back
behind a court paved in mosaic (Plates 79b, 79c, 80c). The
architectural treatment is Flemish, with moulded brick
pilasters, panels over the windows and stepped gables;
there are arresting stacked dormers in the roof. The houses
were advanced enough in November 1884 for The Architect to notice an unusual plan at No. 4, where a low antehall and library came beneath an apsidally ended drawingroom, and the dining- and moring-rooms occupied an
intermediate level at the back. (ref. 5) Later, another journal
admired in one of the reception rooms ‘the blue and silver
talc wall paper … one of Jeffrey's most recent patterns,
designed by J. D. Sedding’, as well as the drawing-room's
‘enamelled white woodwork, and terra-cotta and white
paper above it’. As at No. 1, there was very good plumbing
and a ‘lavatory with shampooing apparatus’. The price of
a long lease here was £8,000, or it could be rented for £600
a year. (ref. 32) Leased in 1886, the house was first lived in by
the Misses Thornton and Miss Tilling. (ref. 35) The plan and
some internal features survive.
No. 5 is much the larger house, partly because of an
extra low wing (which has now lost its stepped gable) to
the north. Here too the plan and some features survive,
showing that the levels were split, with the drawing-room
this time at the back on the half-landing. The wooden
residence by March 1886, was the fourth Earl of Wilton,
who fitted one of the rooms up as an organ-saloon replete
with model organ and patent hydraulic engines. The house
and its fittings were reputed to have cost him upwards of
£25,000. (ref. 36)
No. 6 is the first of three houses at the northern end
of this range which display tall Dutch gables and terracotta
dressings, the ornament being concentrated in pilaster
strips between the windows (Plate 79a, 79b). Though started
in 1885, the house was not leased till 1888 and no occupant
is known prior to Robert Hannay, who arrived in about
1889. (ref. 37)
No. 7, though now in flats, has an interest as the second
house to be occupied in the development by Harold Peto.
Begun in 1885, it was leased to W. H. Peto in 1888 and
in the following year his brother Harold moved in from
No. 9. He stayed only until 1892, the year of his retirement
to the country. (ref. 38) The front, the only one on this side of
Collingham Gardens to be faced entirely in terracotta, is
flat except for a single-storey porch (Plate 79a). During
Peto's time the interior was remarkable for its rich and
dark-panelled rooms furnished with bric à brac and other
objets d’art that betrayed their owner's predilection for the
Northern Renaissance. The ‘sitting room’, a storey and
a half in height, was especially luxurious, having old
stained glass in the windows, a little music gallery and
antique tapestries above the panelling (Plate 85).
No. 8, occuping a corner site, has a tall shaped gable
to the east. Its longer front faces north and features an
angular capped projection enclosing the stairs, with the
entrance at its base (Plates 79a, 80c). An eccentricity is
the small square balcony perched on the ridge of the roof
overlooking the gardens (Plate 79b). This was an ‘observatory’ for the diversion of the client, Captain George
Ernest Augustus Ross, F.R.G.S., F.G.S (ref. 39) The house was
designed by 1884 but not started until 1885 and apparently
not lived in by Ross until 1887. The interior (fig. 80) displays the motifs typical of Collingham Gardens, the bulbous oak balusters to the stairs having the most originality.
No. 9 (at first No. 10) occupies the south-west corner
of the block. As Harold Peto's original house, it is naturally
one of the more individual buildings in the development.
Built in 1883–4, it is smaller and more reticent than its
neighbours and adopts the Jacobethan style. (ref. 40) The
materials are pink bricks with stone dressing and there
were once green slates on the roof ‘ in the manner of old
Susses houses’ (Plate 80a, 80c). (ref. 5)
Figure 81:
No. 9 Collingham Gardens, plans. Ernest George and
Peto, architects, 1883–4
While amply fulfilling a bachelor's requirements, the
plan (fig. 81) was not extravagant, having no back stairs
and only two reception rooms. But the fittings and finishings were suitably aesthetic. There were ‘good old bits’
of German glass in the windows and antique tiles in the
hearths. The dining-room had a stone-arched inglenook,
a beamed ceiling, and walls covered with sixteenth-century
gilt leather. The hall had a hooded stone fireplace, the
drawing-room (Plate 84c) an ornate plaster ceiling and
sandstone chimneypiece, and the stairs some vigorous
Jacobethan detailing. The handsome ironwork details
were made by the firm of Ellis and Rice. All the built-in
features of these rooms survive. (ref. 41) Having lived here from
about 1884 to 1889 Harold Peto moved to No. 7 Collingham Gardens and was succeeded by Mrs. Duncombe
Shafto, widow of the first resident of No. 10. (ref. 42) A two-storey projection built out at the corner and the enlargement (in 1894) of the original hippen bay window to the
drawing-room have not enhanced the appearance of the
house. (ref. 43)
No. 10, now in flats, was built in 1884–5 and first
occupied by Robert Duncombe Shafto. (ref. 44) Its style is distinguished by the use of round-arched windows on the
ground floor and bands of stonework across the façade
(Plate 80a, 80c). The single-storey wing to the north of the
entrance, through part of the house as built, is not shown
on Ernest George's perspective of this group and was
probably not at first intended. The upper parts of the
garden front are tile-hung.
No. 11 was not started till 1886 nor apparently lived
in until about 1889, when Frederick Fleischmann became
the first resident. (ref. 45) Its front is bold and original, displaying
tiers of terracotta-dressed mullioned windows terminating
in two high gables, the southern one projecting to allow
bays to the rooms on all floors (Plate 81b). The house has
been converted into flats.
No. 12 was built along with No, 11 from 1886, and first
inhabited in 1888 by Abraham Joshua. (ref. 46) Surrounted by
a straight gable, its front is faced in terracotta and has a
prominent bay window on the ground floor lighting the
dining-room (Plate 81b). The rear elevation has a similar
bay for the drawing-room. Such of the interiors as survive
are typical of these houses.
No. 12A (originally No. 13) had been sketched out by
1885, when Ernest George showed a drawing for it at the
Royal Academy. The client was William Kemp-Welch of
The Red House, Campden Hill, where Peto Brothers were
then already working. (ref. 47) The original design, probably
intended for the site of No. 12, resembles what was built
in having a stepped gable covering the whole front and
a capped projection at the north end but shows extravagant
balconies and arches instead of the simple corbelled first-floor terrace actually erected (Plate 80b). As built in 1887–8, the front was of terracotta and the back of brick, where
there is tile-hanging beneath a straight gable (Plate 81a).
Kemp-Welch was granted the lease in 1888 but continued
to live in Campden Hill and the directories record no occupant prior to 1806, when John Francis Ogilvy was in
residence. The interior is now in flats.
Nos. 14, 15 and 16 were all built together in 1886–7.
Since each of these houses has a restricted frontage they
rise higher than their neighbours and resemble the Queen
Anne houses of the Cadogan Square district. Their plans
too are (or at No. 16 were) relatively conventional but the
fronts boldly imitate the late-seventeenth-century North
German street-style as practised in towns like Lubeck and
Danzing (Plate 81c, 81d). Nos. 14 and 15 form a pair, having
cut-brick details and panels and wooden sashes. No. 16
is more original: its front (now cut down at the top of the
gable) consists of a broad bay recessed at the sides and
has terracotta mullions and plate-glass windows. The
houses were all leased to W. H. Peto in August 1888 and
first occupied by Mrs. Nelson (No. 14), Leopold Hirsch
(No. 15) and Eugene Pinto (No. 16). (ref. 48)
No. 17, a broader houses than its immediate neighbours,
has a front somewhat in the English style of Nos. 1, 9 and
10 Collingham Gardens. The materials are red brick with
stone dressings and plain leaded lights to the windows.
It was built in 1887–8 and assigned to W. H. Peto who
in 1890 granted a sub-lease of seven years to one William
in 1890 granted a sub-lease of seven years to one William
Heilgers; he in turn probably let it to the first occupant,
the banker and collector Frederick George Hilton Price,
who moved in about 1891 (Plate 81c). (ref. 49) Not long afterwards
the bay window at the southern end was raised by one
storey. The interior (fig. 80) has been altered but retains
a typical staircase, some panelling and some fireplaces.
No. 18 (formerly Nos. 18 and 18a) was at first (as its appearance suggests) two houses. They were the last
undertaken here by Peto Brothers, started in about August
1887 and leased to W. H. Peto a year later. The corner
house, No. 18, was occupied by Edward Arthur Barry in
1891, No. 18a by William Lawrence Smith in 1890. (ref. 50) The
site allows three fronts, each symmetrical. In character
they are Dutch and late-seventeenth-century, with the
vertical outlines accented by strong stone quoins which
alternate with the brickwork at every angle (Plate 81c).