LXXIII—WOBURN WALK AND DUKE'S ROAD
(formerly Woburn Buildings)
From the east side of Woburn Place, Thomas Cubitt erected a little
street of shops which turned at right angles northwards to Euston Road,
skirting the churchyard of New St. Pancras Church. Both sections of this
street were formerly known as Woburn Buildings, but the northern is shown
as Duke's Row on Cary's Map (1818) and has since been named Duke's
Road. The southern part is now called Woburn Walk. The south side of
the latter was numbered 1–8 (going east to west) and on the opposite side
began with No. 9 at the Euston Road end, continuing south and west to
No. 20. The leases are dated 1822.
The houses were of three storeys with stucco fronts, each being
emphasised by recessing the walls where the houses joined. A plain coping
over a projecting band was used as the finish to the parapet with scroll
cresting at special points, and each of the upper storeys had a single broad
window with slightly arched head, within an unmoulded architrave studded
with paterae. The original form of the windows seems to have been a broad
sash window, three panes wide with a single light on each side. The firstfloor window had an ornamental balcony of cast iron with curved ends.
The shop fronts were designed with great skill. The window stood
in the centre, flanked by doorways, and was the same shape in plan as the
balcony over, projecting over the pavement to the level of the sill, beneath
which were two shaped brackets. Each window was divided by very delicate
glazing bars into twenty-four panes, four panes high, and curved at each
side. Over the whole ran an unbroken entablature, which followed the
window curves, with twin pilasters between each house. A single-moulded
cornice, frieze (functioning as a lettered fascia) and an architrave with continuous anthemion ornament made up this most effective shop design. The
doors were of four panels with rectangular fanlight above. The curved sill
of each window was enriched with guilloche ornament (Plate 57). Between
each pair of doors was a wrought-iron scraper. The rainwater downpipes,
with moulded heads, were neatly arranged in alternate recesses between the
houses.
A measured drawing of four of the houses and shops is reproduced
in Georgian London (J. Summerson), p. 250.
Woburn Walk inhabitants
<No. 5 (formerly 18 Woburn Buildings). c.1895-1919, William Butler Yeats.>>