IV.—VINCENT HOUSE, No. 49 QUEEN STREET (Demolished)
Vincent House, which has not long been rebuilt, was a plain late
Georgian building standing on the east side of Queen Street. The brick
front of three storeys, with four windows on the first floor and three on the
second, had pilaster projections at each angle, and above the parapet rose a
slate Mansard roof with two dormer windows lighting the rooms on the third
floor. The staircase showed some curious cast-iron balusters, and on the
ground floor was a fireplace with an elaborate cast-iron interior, having
spiral columns ornamented with the vine, and a hob grate with reeded
pilasters wreathed with floral ornament. Both were interesting examples
of a period when design in cast-iron work retained some good qualities.
The most remarkable feature of the house, however, occurred on
the first floor, where one of the rooms was completely panelled with late
16th-century panels, and had a good plaster ceiling of later date. Two
panels, with twin arches and drop, which had at one time formed part of
an overmantel, remained over a late fireplace. The panelling, which reached
from floor to ceiling and possessed an excellent dentil cornice, had almost
the appearance of being in situ, but it is more likely that the room had been
arranged, if not built, to receive it, about the end of the 18th century. The
ceiling was probably designed at the same time to complete the effect, and
if our supposition is correct, it forms a curiously early example of the
preservation and adaptation of old work to a new building. We have no
information as to the original source of the panelling.
This property bore an annual charge of £10, under the will of John Allen (1666), to
be divided among twenty poor persons in Hammersmith on Christmas Day. Faulkner (fn. 1)
mentions that this sum had been paid by Thomas Wetherell and Richard Elwell, "the
successive occupiers and owners of premises situated in Queen Street." In Allen's bequest
the property is referred to as three tenements.
In the Council's ms. collection are:
(fn. 2) The panelled room (measured drawing).
Front to Queen Street (photograph).
Cast-iron balustrade to stair (photograph).
Fireplace, ground floor (photograph).
(fn. 2) Panelled room (photograph).
Another view of same (photograph).
(fn. 2) Plaster ceiling (photograph).
Two more views of same (photograph).