norland street surveys€¦ · the southern half of the avenue was built between 1840 and 1843,...

NORLAND STREET SURVEYSNorland Neighbourhood Plan

April 2013

Overview

The survey work for this plan is based on the principles set out in the Oxford Character Assess-ment Toolkit, with reference to the features it uses. The survey was conducted by representatives from the Norland Conservation Society in 2009 and 2010. Photos were taken to accompany the survey in 2010.

The buildings in each street, square and crescent are described in detail with recommended ac-tions to enhance the character and quality of neighbourhood and individual buildings, as well as the overall ambience and the street scene. The individual street reports are supported by photo-graphs illustrating all the buildings, problems to be resolved, and required improvement actions.

This document supports the Norland Neighbourhood Plan.

Street Reports

• Addison Avenue and Addison Place• Holland Park Avenue• Norland Square and Norland Place• Penzance Place• Penzance Street• Portland Road• Princedale Road• Queensdale Road, Place and Walk• St Ann’s Road• St James and Darnley

CLARENDON RO

AD

SIRD

AR R

OAD

PORTLAND RO

AD

QUEENSDALE ROAD

PRINCEDALE ROAD

ST ANN

S RO

AD POTTERY LANE

LANSDOW

NE ROAD

A3220

WILSHAM STREET

WALM

ER

RO

AD

MARY PLACE

ADDISON ROAD

ST ANN

S VILLAS

HOLLAND PARK AVENUE

PRINCES PLACE

HOLLAND PARK

PENZANCE PLA

CE

ST JOHN'S GARDENS

LANSDOWNE RISE

NO

RLAN

D SQ

UAR

E

LADBROKE ROAD

ST JAMESS GARDENS

A

DDISON PLACE

HOLLAND PARK MEWS

NO

RLAN

D ROA

D

STONELEIGH PLACE

HOLLAND PARK G

ARDENS

PENZANCE STREET

LANSDOWNE WALK

ROYAL CRESCENT

LANS

DO

WNE CRESCENT

ADD

ISON

AVENU

E

NORLAND PLACE

STONELEIG

H STREET

UPPER ADDISON GARDENS

RO

YAL

CR

ESC

ENT M

EWS

KING

HAM

CLO

SE

ABBOTSBU

RY R

OAD

HESKETH PLACE

SWANSCO MBE ROAD QU

EENSD

ALE PLACE

CLARENDON CROSS

DARNLEY TERRACE

GO

RH

AM PLAC

E

CO

WLIN

G C

LOSE

PORTLAND RO

AD

NO

RLAN

D SQ

UAR

E

© Crown copyright and database rights 2011 Ordnance Survey 100021668

I0 100 20050 Metres

Norland Neighbourhood Area - Street Surveys

CLARENDO

N ROAD

HOLLAND PARK AVENUE

PORTLAND RO

AD

SIRDAR ROAD

QUEENSDALE ROAD

PRINCEDALE ROAD

POTTERY LANE

ST ANN

S RO

AD

LANSDOW

NE ROAD

A3220

ADDISON ROAD

WILSHAM STREET

MARY PLACE

ST ANN

S VILLAS

WALM

ER R

OAD

PRINCES PLACE

HOLLAND PARK

PENZAN CE PLA

CE

ST JOHN'S GARDENS

LANSDOWNE RISE

NO

RLAN

D SQ

UAR

E

LADBROKE ROAD

ST JAMESS GARDENS

A

DDISON PLACE

HOLLAND PARK MEWSN

ORLAND

RO

AD

HOLLAN

D PARK GARDENS

LANSDOWNE WALK

PENZANCE STREET

UPPER ADDISON GARDENS

ROYAL CRESCENT

STONELEIGH PLACE

LAN

SD

OW

NE CRESCENT

ADD

ISON

AVENU

E

ABBOTSBU

RY RO

AD

NORLAND PLACE

RO

YAL

CR

ESC

ENT

MEWS

KING

HA

M C

LOS

E

HOLLAND ROAD

SWANSCO MBE ROAD QU

EENSD

ALE PLACE

CLARENDON CROSS

DARNLEY TERRACE

GO

RH

AM PLAC

E

CO

WLIN

G C

LOSE

PORTLAND R OAD

NO

RLAN

D SQ

UAR

E

Norland Neighbourhood Plan - Proposed Area

© Crown copyright and database rights 2011 Ordnance Survey 100021668

I0 100 20050 Metres

Listed BuildingsGRADE

I

II

II*

Addison Avenue and Addison Place Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Clive Wilson and Shirley Nicholson (updated to 9/2/2010) Photographic record: completed by Clive Wilson

ADDISON AVENUE Detailed description: Addison Avenue is a wide avenue, leading up to St James’s Gardens (originally Square), offering a grand vista terminating in St James’s church with its intended spire at the centre of the square garden, at the heart of the Estate. Addison Avenue’s two storey houses are paired and treated as villas of elegance and carefully considered design, especially north of Queensdale Road where they are larger (having attic rooms in their roofs, and basements), with round-headed windows on their upper floor. The houses are spacious internally with 30 metres between the frontages. With the lovely mature street trees they comprise an almost arcadian setting in this conservation area. The setting is so splendid that one is inclined to overlook the houses south of Queensdale Road, of lesser stature, without the round-headed windows. The southern half of the Avenue was built between 1840 and 1843, (before the northern half), and comprised twenty two-storey stucco-fronted paired houses (18-36 even and 17-35 odd), as well as a public house (the Norland Arms, now turned into offices at 12-14). All the lessees (with one exception) were building tradesmen who evidently supplied their own designs: (eg 29 and 31 clearly the work of a plasterwork specialist). Though this part of the Avenue is laid out as a unity, the pairs of houses all vary in detail, and even in height. There seems to have been no difficulty in finding takers for the houses when completed. The grand vision of the Avenue leading up to the church is just as dependent on the houses at the southern end of the Avenue as those at the northern end, and, since March 2004, these are subject to Art 4 Directions covering façades, and hardstandings, but not enclosures. This is now to be put right, by a further Art 4 direction. The ten pairs of houses north of the Queensdale Road were built later, on the west side to one design (but with different pediment treatments over the ground floor windows – some flat, some triangular), with separate leases granted to building tradesmen, but the houses were not all occupied until 1848. On the east side the last leases for the houses were not granted until 1850. The two-storey houses are paired and treated as villas of elegance and carefully considered design, with basements and rooms in the roofs, each pair being linked to its neighbours by the principal entrances, which are set back at the sides. These are tentatively attributed to F.W.Strent, and departed from the traditional two room per floor London townhouse style, having a wider frontage, less floors and well-proportioned rooms, ground-floor windows with architraves surmounted by pediments, round-headed windows on the upper floor, attic rooms and basements. The doorways in the linking blocks are large and trabeated with central piers; and the roofs overhang substantial eaves. (Unfortunately over the years a wide variety of different style dormers have been added to both front and rear of these houses, which destroys the effect of unity.) The houses have stucco façades which are divided by pilasters and plain strings. They have wider frontages than those in Royal Crescent, and are more conveniently planned, with well-proportioned rooms on half the number of floors, thus departing from the traditional central London plan form in favour of a new suburban ideal. The glazing pattern of first floor and ground floor windows is important to the character and design of the houses, and the glazing bars should be painted white for emphasis. (There is currently an unfortunate trend towards slatted blinds which completely destroy the verticality of the design. This should be resisted, though beyond planning control.) Number 57 and St James’s Lodge were built 1845-6, to a new style of semi-detached Tudor-Gothic style. Later still (1933), at 58, a curious “Tudorbethan” cottage with leaded lights was squeezed into the gap between 56 St James’s Gardens and 56 Addison Avenue.

Some of the railings to the houses are still missing, and some have been replaced with the wrong design. At the south end of the Avenue, there are a few small shops, whose frontages, signage and displays should be controlled to avoid street clutter.

Listing The houses north of the Queensdale Road intersection (37-57 and 38-56) are all listed Grade II. Those south of the intersection are not listed, but some of the houses have interesting interior details (stucco mouldings in particular). Unfortunately, despite the listed status of 37-57 and 38-56, some of the interiors have somehow been allowed to be “messed about”: important interior features (interior walls and “old-fashioned” decorative details) have been ripped out to satisfy current minimalist fashions and suit modern family living. In future, planners (and the Conservation Society) need to be vigilant to prevent this happening further. As to the southern end of the Avenue (Numbers 17-35 and 18-36), it is important, here too, to protect interesting interiors, which can only be achieved by listing. Following a further detailed survey, the Norland Conservation Society will consider applying for Listing. Soft spots/threats: South end of Addison Avenue is covered by Art 4:

• 1-35 (odd) & 16-36 (even) for Doors and windows, balconies and architectural details of façades • 17-35(odd) &18-36 (even) for hardstandings (4.2), but not enclosures (4.1) • No coverage for Rendering and Exterior Painting • But no listings, whereas North end (37-55 odd, St James’s Lodge, 38-56 even) is Grade II • South end 1-35 (odd) & 16-36 (even) should be listed.

NB 29 & 31 have good interior plasterwork which particularly should be preserved. Is 57 listed or not? (Not mentioned separate to St James’s Lodge on RBKC website)

• All architectural details, window and door surrounds, window glazing bars, cornices, string courses and balconies should be painted white for emphasis, to contrast with wall colours. How can this be assured?

• At the south end of the Avenue, there are a few small shops, whose frontages, signage (no illuminated signs) and displays should be controlled to avoid street clutter.

Major concerns:

• How to control rear alterations and extensions into gardens? • How to control attic extensions? • How to protect against development of Addison Avenue rear gardens onto Carson Terrace? (Some

development here already) Rear alterations and extensions: - The standard guidelines for rear extensions in Conservation Areas should be followed - No two-storey extensions allowed: general guideline should be that extensions higher than the garden party

walls should not be allowed - CD66 (alterations to Listed Buildings) and CD47 should apply: particular attention should be paid to the

detailed design of any addition, not allowing external materials and finishes which would not be in character with the original building; original architectural features, and later features of interest, both internal and external, should be preserved.

Control of attic extensions: - though this should be taken care of by an SPD within the LDF, such a huge variety of attic windows have

been allowed over the years that guidelines specific to Addison Avenue are appropriate, - notwithstanding precedents

- Roof extensions should be set back at least 50cms (horizontally) from the eaves - Dormer extensions should not, in aggregate, occupy more than 50% of the width of the roof at eaves level Rear garden developments:

- There are a considerable number of precedents for developments in the rear gardens of Addison Avenue, giving access onto Carson Terrace and Queensdale Walk. For future applications guidelines are required:

- Rear garden developments should not exceed single storey, and roof height at the eaves should not be higher than the existing party wall with neighbours on either side

- The highest part of the roof of any such development should not be higher than the eaves by more than 50% of the height of the party wall on the neighbours’ side, allowing for a maximum roof slope of 40 degrees on either side

- Particular attention should be paid to the detailed design of any addition: the design should be in sympathy with original architectural features of the main house

- Materials to be used should be similar in appearance to those of the main house: external materials and finishes should be in character with the original building

Comments on individual houses:

58 (the “Tudorbethan” cottage) has ugly high wall 52 and 50 have “wrong” railings 40 has slatted window blinds, which detract from the intended verticality of the windows 38 missing railings; railings base painted black. Missing street sign 36 missing railings; 1st floor windows wrong design 34 No railings? (thick hedge) 32 wrong glazing bars 28 has wrong railings 26 has railings missing 2 has ugly backlit signage across entire shop front 1 & 3, 9 & 11: Cornice missing 11 “Illegal?” trellis on roof: In future, this should not be allowed: the guideline should be no roofline fixtures or furniture visible from street level on the opposite side of the street. 29 & 31 wrong railings 33 & 53 wrong glazing bars 57 No railings (wrong fence)

Summary of Article 4 directions: Existing and Required

Existing Art 4 directions Original

recommendations Additions

Doors, windows, balconies and architectural details of façades

1 – 35(odd), 16 – 36(even) 4.2√ (AS 10035858, dated 29/3/06)

None

58

Preventing rendering and painting of brickwork

None None 58

Preventing use of front gardens for car parking/ inappropriate alterations to front garden enclosures

(a) Hardstandings

17 – 35(odd), 18 – 36 (even) 4.2√ (AS 10035858, dated 29/3/06)

38 – 56(even), 37 – 57(odd): are these covered under Enclosures, see below? (Front gardens sometimes used for parking motorbikes)

58

(b) Enclosures 38 – 56(even), 37 – 57(odd): 4.1√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 – App F)

Include 17 – 35(odd), 16 – 36(even) (4.1 not applied for? (Norland ART4 22.03.00 – App H)

58

Listing recommendations: South end 1-35 (odd) & 16-36 (even) should be listed. NB 29 & 31 have good interior plasterwork which should be listed ADDISON PLACE Detailed description: Addison Place links the southern end of Addison Avenue (between Numbers 11 and 13) through to Queensdale Road (between 25 and 27). On the north side is a row of charming 19C cottages with front gardens behind hedges, fences, roses and apple trees. On its south side are mostly garages and offices in plain two-storey post-War buildings. At the east and west ends, the remaining cottages (2&4, 3&5 over garages at the east end), give a clue to the mews character that must have existed before, (presumably during WWII), Numbers 7-25 were destroyed. North side: 2 and 4 look like original mews houses (No 2 with 2 integral garages) 6, 8 and 10 have retained mews scale, with garages below, but considerably “done over” 12 is hidden behind trees and shrubs in the corner, but seems in keeping with 14 – 22, though not listed 14 - 22: Attractive Grade II listed cottages But 22 has inappropriate fencing Not clear what happens behind 22/between 22 and 26 (solid metal gates) Nor what is the use of 28 South side: 1 is an interesting modern re-build in scale with the mews 3 is an original mews cottage, with garage below 5 has been redeveloped, retaining a semblance of carriage doors below, but large plate glass windows at 1st floor 7 – 25: Scrappy, post-war replacement of Mews houses

27, 29, 31: restored mews cottages without garages under, painted brickwork

Soft spots: • 3 & 5: Need to maintain Mews character (though 1 is good example of modern architecture fitting in); and avoid

inappropriate colour schemes. • 2 & 4: Need to maintain Mews character, and avoid rendering and painting • 7 – 25: Scrappy, post-war replacement of Mews houses. Need to define guidelines for eventual acceptable

replacements. Also to avoid inappropriate colour schemes. • 12: add to Grade II listing? • Not clear what happens behind 22/between 22 and 26 (solid metal gates): Need for more appropriate

enclosure to 22 • Not clear what is the use of 28. • Any possible developments at this end of Addison Place should respect the scale and character of a mews (eg

max 2 floors) • 27, 29, 31: Need to retain existing scale and cottagey character, and avoid inappropriate colour schemes 7 – 25 Addison Place – guidelines for eventual replacement: eg • Roof height should be no higher than existing • Design should recreate the character and feel of a Mews • Materials should be sympathetic to the Listed cottages opposite (14-22) • No increase in footprint allowed





None (14 – 22 covered by listing)

None

3 & 5? 27, 29, 31?


None None 2 & 4, 3 & 5? 27, 29, 31?


(a) Hardstandings

14 – 22(even): 4.2√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 – App C)

None 12

(b) Enclosures 14 – 22(even): 4.2√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 – App F)

None Include 12, Secure more appropriate enclosure to 22

Exterior painting 14 – 22(even): 4.1√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 – App G)

Add 12? 2 & 4, 3 & 5? 27, 29, 31?

Holland Park Avenue Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Robin Price (updated to 9/2/2010) Photographs taken August by Clive Wilson Holland Park Avenue is a main road, heading out of London to the west (the old Oxford Road), with some fine Grade II listed buildings within the Conservation Area, on the north side: 152-168 between Norland Square and Addison Avenue; 170-178 between Addison Avenue and Royal Crescent; and 180-186, west of Royal Crescent. All are these are also covered by Art 4 direction to control paint colour to fit with Royal Crescent. The unity of the Avenue might be further enhanced by controlling the paint colour of houses behind/above the shops, and, particularly, the houses with small front gardens and no shops (130-132). Holland Park Avenue is also an important local shopping street; many a battle has been fought to resist turning it into a Red Route; now white, short-stay meters are installed outside some of the key shops. NOTE on all shop and restaurant fronts: Predictably, the shops and a pub – The Castle – include good and bad shopfront designs. The good give character to the whole shopping street. Since shop fronts remain requiring planning permission, when the opportunity arises (eg on a change of ownership), every possible effort should be made to implement improved designs for the bad. The 1982 CAPS made prescriptive suggestions as to acceptable design concepts for shop and restaurant fronts at 180 – 186 Holland Park Avenue. These are still relevant and appropriate and could be taken as a model for elsewhere in the Avenue. Our preference for future development on Holland Park Avenue is to be prescriptive, in order to avoid the brash, plastic look of eg the Singapore Chinese Restaurant, the Pizzeria, Jazz’s Barber. It would be worth spending some money to include suggested acceptable design ideas in this CAPS. Of course, in practice, change can only be achieved when properties change ownership or function. Can anything be done to prevent posters being plastered randomly all over shop windows – as at “99” Dry Cleaners? Holland Park Avenue – North side Clarendon Road to Portland Road 100 – 116 100

The Castle public house: tubular railings above Retain: All original glazed tiling, also the raised lettering, on Holland Park Avenue and Clarendon Road sides – need Art 4 (Architectural details of façades)

Discreet awning next to 102 is acceptable

102

Maison Blanc: acceptable

104-106

Hillcrest Pharmacy: minimalist, but elegant and acceptable. Garden above

108 Cyrano restaurant: with awning, limited tables and chairs outside, acceptable

110

Lidgate Butchers: Retain: - original, and enhanced original, features, ie shopfront, lettering,

awning - wrought iron railing above, incorporating “Lidgate” (not original)

need Art 4 (Architectural details of façades)

112-114

Daunts Books: Discreet and coordinated, if huge, fascia, acceptable. Garden above

116

Pizzeria: brash house style, needs a radical re-think on change of ownership

There are no balustrades above the retail units, and no indication (from street level) that there ever were any. The house façades behind the shops are highly varied, and probably always were. Their plain string course drops between 104 and 114. NCS could consider (via RBKC) encouraging a coordinated approach to paint colour of the houses behind (only 102, “Maison Blanc” retains a brick façade), but since the variation of this low façade is well hidden behind the shops and by the summer foliage of the Holland Park Avenue trees, it may not be worthwhile or necessary. Portland Road to Princedale Road: 118-122: 118 - 122

In good order, but 122 Singapore Chinese Restaurant has inappropriate brash fascia, and a more appropriate treatment should be sought when possible. Retain: • stucco colour and brickwork • vermiculated pilasters and Corinthian pillar window surrounds at first

floor • rusticated pilasters at second floor • moulded pilasters at third floor • need Art 4 (Architectural details of façades)

Princedale Road to Norland Square 124 – 150 124

Rug Company – acceptable

126 & 128

Mark Wilkinson and Bombay Bicycle Club - acceptable 128: Restore: - dentils to cornice - mouldings to central feature of balustrade

130 - 132

(private houses): colour should be controlled by Art 4 as 170 – 186? 130: Restore: - glazing bars on ground floor and first floor Retain: - area railings - pilaster door surrounds - balconies on first floor - cream painted stucco and brickwork

134

Holland Park News – acceptable

136

“99” Dry Cleaners: Windows are a mess, with posters plastered all over them. Can anything be done to control this?

138

Gelato Mio – acceptable

140

Unclear what it is

142-144

(formerly car showroom): Replace: - cornice and dentils - smaller shop windows for present excessive plate glass - heavy fascia board for one in scale Retain: - stucco in its present colour throughout

146

Ark Health & Beauty – acceptable

148 Edera Restaurant - acceptable

150 Hair Designs – acceptable

Norland Square to Addison Avenue 152 – 168

K2 Telephone kiosk backing onto Norland Square railings is listed Grade II 150

Corner of Norland Square: Norland Mansions, No 57, including Marsh & Parsons with long frontage onto Holland Park Avenue

152 - 168

Listed Grade II and covered by Art 4 for paint colour, and pretty well maintained

152: Ayurveda Spa (inappropriate, but well-designed metal sign)

158

School of Meditation

160

Blue front door; replace cornice

162-166

Norland Place School (all have “wrong” front doors) 162: • replace glazing bars at ground floor and first floor Need to retain: • all stucco, and its colour, rusticated, at ground floor • pilaster door surrounds • balconies and existing hoods at first floor Need to replace:

• ideally, garden/yard walls as uniform – difficult to establish original walls

Addison Avenue to Royal Crescent 170 - 178 170 - 178

All listed Grade II and covered by Art 4 for paint colour to fit with Royal Crescent

176-178

Replace: • Ionic columns (if they originally had them) Retain : • Glazing bars, porticos, railings • balconies at first floor • hoods to windows on first floor • stucco and rustication at ground floor • colour of stucco, and brickwork, as existing Should be covered by Grade II listing

Royal Crescent to M41 spur: 180 – 186 180 - 186

All listed Grade II, + Art 4 to control colour This short row is in surprisingly good general order and preservation, despite its compromised site, and should be so maintained.

182 “Jazz’s Barbers” is indeed jazzy in brightest orange with vast fascia. A

more appropriate colour scheme and fascia should be insisted on in due time. Given Grade II listing, this is probably a case for enforcement. Retain: • glazing bars, colour of paint

Holland Park Avenue, south side, 133 – 159 133 - 159

133-159 H.Pk Ave P1030721 This terrace does not lie within the Norland Conservation Area. But, effectively, it forms the south side of Norland Square. It is therefore important to the overall effect of the square and needs protecting – by Art 4 Direction The terrace is unusually well-maintained and unified, and it should remain so. The dormer windows are varied, but acceptably so. 133 is boarded up for refurbishment: needs monitoring Retain: • finials at each end of house pairs • glazing • porticos • alternate hoods to windows at first floor • unified colour of stucco, brickwork • rusticated stucco at ground floor

On the whole, our part of Holland Park Avenue is remarkably well-maintained, of uniform colour, and is much of a piece. We should seek to retain, and, where possible, to restore, all original features. It is unusual that so much has survived time, and especially WW II. Soft spots/threats:

- inappropriate, garish shop fronts, internally-lit fascias and illuminated signage (eg Jazz Barbers at 182, Pizzeria at 116)

- loss of local and convenience shops to chains (eg Tesco, Bath Store) or to residential (not so likely on Holland Park Avenue)

- loss of the very few attractive, atmospheric shopfronts (eg Lidgates) - pavement notices which obstruct the footway - inappropriate roof terrace activities (above the shops) eg tables, chairs and parasols above cafés and pubs - cheap, builders’ merchant type front doors on Listed buildings (as at Norland Place School, 162-166)

Some of these threats can be taken care of by enforcement of existing listing, planning and Art 4 direction requirements. Those concerned with shop fronts were raised in the 1981 CAPS, with proposed policy guidelines, which do not seem to have been followed, are still valid and should be followed in future: eg “One of the Royal Borough's aims is to give priority to retaining convenience shopping, and to protecting it and providing it where necessary to serve the day-to day needs of the Borough's residents and to encourage its location in easily accessible areas. There will normally be a presumption against the grant of planning permission which involves the loss of a convenience shop… However, the Council has little power to control changes between types of shops. Since planning permission is not generally required to change from one type of retail use to another, this can lead to a loss in food and convenience shops, reducing local services and altering the character

of the street. The Council will continue to seek a change in the Use Classes Order and relevant legislation to make convenience shops a separate Use Class (so that planning permission would be required for a change to any other retail use).” “Retention of external character, whether the usage is of local, London or national concern, will be insisted upon. The Royal Borough's shopfronts design guide (to be adopted shortly) will apply throughout the area and little specific expansion of it is required. “… internally-lit fascias ~ of ostentatious size, colour and brightness must be avoided. This view will be respected in future planning decisions.” “Pavement notices which obstruct the footway will not be allowed, and fluorescent lighting or signs are not generally welcome.” “Large plastic fascias have unfortunately made their appearance in various places (eg 116, 182): future applications must display greater restraint… Stallrisers and subdivided windows will be required in future development in order to retain the necessary small·scale treatment. No projecting illuminated signs or internally illuminated fascias will be allowed, although one illuminated hanging sign not larger than 450mm by 600mm may be acceptable for each shop.” The 1981 CAPS made prescriptive suggestions as to acceptable design concepts for shop and restaurant fronts at 180 – 186 Holland Park Avenue. These are still relevant and appropriate and could be taken as a model for elsewhere in the Avenue. Summary of Article 4 directions: Existing and Required

Existing Art 4 directions

Original recommendations Additions


None

None

100: The Castle public house 110: Lidgates 118 – 122 133 – 159 Holland Park Avenue, south side

Exterior Painting 152 – 168 (even) 170 – 186 (even)

124 – 150 (even)? 130- 132 (even) 180 – 186 (even) Paint colour of all houses behind/above the shops: should it be controlled?

Norland Square and Norland Place Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Shirley Nicholson (updated to 9/2/2010) Norland Square

Despite the preoccupations of fashion, the level nature of the ground in the Norland Estate encouraged a grid layout, and not the curves and picturesqueness of Ladbroke, with its slopes and hills. So Norland Square and St James’s Gardens, with their communal gardens, play an important role in breaking up the rectangular pattern of streets. Norland Square, with its three long terraces with stucco-fronted Italianate facades, featuring main and secondary cornices and an attic storey, is as much dependent on its garden for the pleasant ambience as on the buildings, whose style is much more akin to the general efforts of builders of the time. Perhaps because of the shallow curved bays below the continuous cast iron balustraded first floor balconies, the terraces are somewhat reminiscent of some seaside resort developments of the 1830's and 40’s. The plan forms of the houses hold no surprises. Norland Square is Listed Grade II, with an Art 4 Direction prescribing its paint colour, (Weathershield Dulux Hopsack 10B17). An important element in its visual unity is provided by the two terraces of Queensdale Road on either side of the north side of the Square, which, equally, need protection (see photograph below showing 18,19,20 Norland Square and part of 16 Queensdale Road). This will now be provided by Art 4 Directions covering all details of the façades, windows and doors of these terraces. Soft spots/threats:

1 and 1A Norland Square – Art 4.1

1B Norland Square – Art 4.1

Norland Mansions – Art 4.2? (see below)

Detailed description:

Shop, Hair Dezigns

• On East corner of square with Holland Park Avenue

1, 1b

• Four storeys and basement with full height bay window all painted stucco, good condition. Projecting porch with infilled sides and moulded surround. Several 'blind' windows on facade, one of the glazed ones at 1st floor has been shortened. Handsome heavy cornice with brackets above 2nd floor.

• No I forms the corner with 150 Holland Park Avenue. At present it is painted white to fit with 150, and the rest of the terrace 124-150 Holland Park Avenue, (which are not listed, nor subject to Art 4 directions).

• As the corner of a listed square, itself subject to Art 4.1 controlling colour, it would be most unfortunate if any future owner were to take it into their head to paint No 1 any colour other than white.

• Equally, its fenestration and architectural features should not be messed about. To this extent an Art 4.2 is required to control architectural features, and an Art 4.1 to control paint colour. (This raises the question whether an Art 4.1 direction should be implemented in respect of the rest of the terrace 124-150 Holland Park Avenue.)

• 1b is only one storey, no basement, and its projecting porch matches that at 1 but it has lost mouldings over top of door. Good railings.

1a

1a is a low block with its main frontage on Norland Place. The ground floor on the Norland Square side has been extended. There is a narrow terrace above it with row of window boxes and what looks like an old 'hay door'. Reasonably good order, cornices fair, poor plumbing. No 1a forms the south side of the entrance to Norland Place, currently painted cream/yellow. Because it is low-built, it gives a pleasantly open feeling to the west end of the mews. There is always the possibility of a planning application to raise the roofline by adding another storey. This should be resisted to maintain the current character of the mews.

2 - 18 Norland Square

• Very handsome terrace, almost perfect, should be Grade 1. Four floors and basement, pretty bow windows, all painted stucco

• Ground floor rusticated with imitation voussoirs above the bow window.

• French windows at 1st floor opening on to balcony with cast iron railing running along whole length of terrace, except on first house (No 2) where it looks to have been removed and a short piece of similar railing put in at the foot of the windows. (This house has had the end wall rebuilt with unfortunate modern casement windows. Although these do not overlook the Square they are visible from the pavement and detract from the period feel of the area.)

• Non-projecting stucco porches with pilasters on either side and moulded hoods over square fanlights.

• Good four panel front doors except at 6, 7, and 12. • Moulded window hoods with brackets at first floor, original blind

box at 14. • Simple mouldings round 2nd floor windows, none at 3rd floor.

Fenestration good, but glazing bars altered at ground floor level on 12 - 17.

• Nice heavy cornice with dentils above 2nd floor, simple cornice along the top, all in excellent condition.

• No visible plumbing on 2 - 11, or wires (except on 6 & 7), lovely! • But bad plumbing at 14, 15 and 16. Very good railings and gates. • Terrace all painted in approved colours - except eg 10 and 12

Oueensdale Road here

19 - 35 Norland Square

Subtly different from first terrace (2-18): still very handsome but not in quite such good order: • 19 - 24 have rustication on 1st and 2nd floors with pilasters

running up between the houses, and 3rd floor windows with moulded surrounds,

• Bow windows on all houses (as before) but without imitation voussolrs

• Also heavier mouldings than first terrace around windows on 1st and 2nd floors at 19 - 24, reverting to simple mouldings for rest of range

• Window hoods with brackets at 1st floor all along terrace • Simple moulded cornice all along the top ?? and handsome

cornice above 2nd floor supported by large brackets with a string course below

• Variations in centre of range with dentlls (as in first terrace) on 25 and 26, then brackets on 27, 29 and 31 - 35

• No brackets or dentlls on 28 and 30 • Door surrounds at 19 - 24, 27, 29, 31 - 35 also not the same

as first terrace: here a band of rustication each side of door instead of pilasters; curved top over the fanlight and a rose motif carved into the stucco at upper corners.

• The porch pattern of the first terrace reappears at 25, 26, 28 and 30: (These are the same houses that do not have brackets under the cornice or rustication at 1st and 2nd floors; these quirky variations spoil the overall look of this range.)

• From 25 - 30 and 32 - 35, no mouldings round windows at 3rd floor, but 31 reverts to moulded surrounds at 3rd floor.

• 23 has lost brackets for hoods of 1st floor windows • Window bars all very good and nice four panel doors all along

except 27. • Rather crude wooden divisions at balcony level between

houses 24 - 29. • Very good railings and gates. • Bad plumbing at 20, 21 and 35. • Bad wires at 22.

Oueensdale Road here

36 - 52 Norland Square.

This terrace matches the first one (2 - 18) but is not quite so perfect! • Several basement windows have been enlarged, but not

obtrusively • Rustication and imitation voussolrs at ground floor level as on first

terrace • No mouldings round 3rd floor windows • Mouldings and hoods with brackets at 1st floor except at 50, • Lower half of one 1st floor window altered at 51. • Window bars at ground floor altered from 48 - 51. • Good four panel doors except at 43, 45, 48, 49, 50 and 52. • Good cornice except dentlls missing on 40 • Bad plumbing on 51 • Bad wires at 39, 41, 42, 45 and 46 • Wooden balcony dividers unsightly at 45, 46 and 47 • Houses at the southern end of the terrace appear to have suffered

subsidence which has made the cornices and other long sight lines run not quite true, detracting from the overall effect

• 52, at the end, has original blank side wall with no windows inserted

• Very good railings and gates.

Norland Square Mansions here, with small mews behind:

A thirties-style mansion block of no particular distinction. However, any changes should not : • involve raising the roof line, or developing any roof terraces which

would clutter the existing roof line, eg with trellissing, parasols, furniture

• alter the current design in terms of fenestration, balconies, bay windows, and painted versus brickwork panels

• Art 4.2?





None None

No 1 and 1A No 1B Norland Mansions

Exterior painting

2-52(consec) Weathershield Dulux Hopsack 10B17)

1 and 1A

Norland Place Piers for a possible original arch at Norland Square entrance to pretty cobbled mews. Mostly unspoilt carriage houses, with 'hay doors' still in evidence. 1, 3 • Still have good simple cornices, these taken away on most of the

others. • Very unfortunate choice of paint colour for No1, on corner with

Norland Square. 5

• 5, which has builders inside, could be under threat. Its facade is the least interesting of the ones on the south side, which makes a preservation order difficult

11

• The stairs on 11 must be fairly recent but don't look bad

13

• Some unfortunate rebuilding at the eastern end. 13 is blatantly 'modern' and belongs to the same Town Hall mind set as a similar rebuild at 1 Addison Place.

16-18

• 16 - 18 pay lip service to historicism but end up dull.(Nasty windows and doors)

• Which of these alternatives do we want to encourage?

Norland Place is covered by Art 4 Direction in respect of doors and windows. Any future alterations should reinforce the quiet, low-built mews character. Art 4 direction required to control paint colour. Summary of Article 4 directions: Existing and Required

NP Existing Art 4 directions



1-16 & 18 None

None

Exterior painting

None

None

1-16 & 18

Penzance Place Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Robin Price (updated to 9/2/2010) South side, odd numbers: 1 – 11 In brief, this is an attractive corner of largely stuccoed early-Victorian Kensington, which, despite, or perhaps because of, gentrification and sensitive refurbishment in the last 40 years, has acquired considerable character and charm. Its 1840’s period integrity should therefore be maintained and, wherever possible, enhanced. 1

• Three storeys, no basement, all stuccoed; steps to recessed and raised front door; plate-glass light above.

• No surrounds to the three windows on each of the first and second floors; all these windows have Georgian glazing bars.

• Four lights to the three ground-floor windows, two windows to left of door, one on its right.

3-7

• Four storeys, including basement, all stuccoed. Moulded surrounds to first and second-floor windows, all of four plate-glass lights

• Pilasters with capitals to either side of doors, lights above; steps to raised doors

• Moulded cornice above ground floor continuous with 9 and 11. • Original fleur-de-lys railings, no gates to basement areas. • Moulded cornice to parapet • (NB No 3 is double-fronted, with three windows to first and second

floors.)

9

• Four storeys including basement, stuccoed throughout. • Capitals to pilasters to the two doorways at either end of the

façade, and at either side of the gorund floor windows. • Moulded surrounds to first floor windows. • All windows (except basment) have 6 panes with vertical (ie non-

Georgian) glazing bars.

11

• Four storeys, including basement (but long horizontal basement lights at pavement level);

• All stuccoed, presently painted light grey • The façade rounded to meet Pottery Lane houses, which it adjoins • Georgian glazing bars to windows on ground and first floors. • Moulded surrounds to first and second-floor windows; four-light

windows to second floor • Moulded cornices to first floor windows and “reverse” stepped

capitals to pilasters on either side of ground-floor windows. • Modern moulded running cornice above ground-floor windows and

the recessed door (with steps up to it).

North side: even numbers A near uniform terrace, with detailed line of cornices and dentils to the parapet, to Nos 6-10, and original and well-maintained fleur-de-lys railings to each basement area; no gates seem ever to have been in place. The railing line runs to the apex of the quite distinguished “flat-iron” building at No 12. This is now an office building, which divides Penzance Place from the north end of Pottery Lane. 2-4

• Four storeys, including basement; stucco to basement and ground floor; stock brick to first and second floors; steps to front door.

• Moulded surrounds to all windows, all are four-light, with cornices to first-floor windows

• Pilasters with capitals and plain cornices to doors • Original detailed railings to first-floor continuous balcony

6-10

• Four storeys, including basement, all stucco. • Pilasters with capitals, but no cornices to the doors • All houses painted in different, and attractive, colours • Moulded surrounds to first- and second-floor windows; moulded

cornices and scroll brackets to first-floor windows • Nos 6-8 have eight-light windows • No 10 has four-light windows throughout

12

• A “flat-iron” rounded elevation dividing Penzance Place and Pottery Lane; all stucco, simply, but elegantly designed. A distinctive and attractive feature of the area.

• Four storeys, including basement, with continuing line of fleur-de-lys original railings protecting the basement area.

• Plain moulding above ground-floor level • Moulded hood with brackets over door to Penzance Place

elevation; the hood and brackets probably modern. • Moulded double pilasters to door on Penzance Place, the same

pilasters, in single and double form, used as a continued decorative feature at ground-floor level to both elevations

• Four-light and two-light sash windows at first and second floors. • A simple, and probably modern, cornice to parapet, which is

higher, and therefore discontinuous, with the general line of 2-10 parapets.

12A

(On the corner of Pottery Lane, Penzance Place and Princedale Rd)

• An unusual, and carefully designed late Victorian building (c 1870), almost certainly originally a pub

• 3 storeys, no basement, with façades onto Princedale Road and Penzance Place

• The corner site affords the opportunity for a rounded corner with a rounded cartouche (over what was presumably, originally the entrance, at the apex), running vertically through first and second floors, (presumably for display of the pub sign)

• Ground floor stuccoed (presently pleasingly coloured light cream), with champfered pilasters with capitals to a blind arcade

• First and second floors in London stock brick (with the exception of four courses immediately below the cornice in red brick)

• First floor with a running balcony around the façades, with a low original Victorian balcony railing; small balconies to each window

on the second floor, with original Victorian railings • 3 windows on each floor on the Princedale Road elevation, 4 on

each floor on the Penzance Place side; 1st and 2nd floor windows have shaped and sculpted lintels, presently painted light cream to match the ground floor stucco

• Prominent moulded cornice, supported at intervals by double scrolls, to match the pilasters on the ground floor; red brickwork behind the double scrolls to emphasise the cornice

• Above the cornice, a pierced stone balustrade on both façades Soft spots/threats

• No Art 4 directions to protect attractive largely stuccoed corner of early-Victorian Sensitive refurbishment in the last 40 years, has given it considerable character and charm. Its 1840’s period integrity should therefore be maintained and, wherever possible, enhanced.

• No 21 is currently HQ of the Islamic Universal Association, and serves as a mosque. It is close to the NE corner of St James’s Gardens, and very visible from the square, to which the pleasantly understated building forms an inoffensive back-drop. Some years back, an application was submitted (and turned down following vociferous protest from the locals) for a substantial enlargement, and radical changes to the façade to “islamify” it. A re-application remains a threat, and Art 4.2 directions are required to protect architectural details and prevent rendering and painting





None

None

1-11, 2-12, 12A, 21 Islamic Universal Association


None None 2-4, 12A, 21 Islamic Universal Association

Penzance Street Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Robin Price (updated to 9/2/2010) South side – numeration of properties is discontinuous; where recognisable it is consecutive. Begins at:

10, 11, 12

• Modern three-storey brick elevation, no basements. • Plate glass, lateral sash windows, from builder’s stock to first and

second floors • Three recessed doors, with bin stores and garage doors • The whole is practical, in scale, if meekly inoffensive, and

seemingly off-the-peg

Flats within Nos 16, 17, 18, 19

• An early (public housing?) 20th century development, within an unenclosed, but gated yard, provided with modern pedimented entrance, with bin stores on either side. An inoffensive and practical development.

• Four storeys, no basements, brick with vertical stucco panels, gables to street elevation at either side of the entrance to yard.

• A fillet runs above the ground floor throughout, repeated less emphatically on the pedimented entrance to the yard, presently painted grey-blue; an acceptable attempt to bring the complex together.

Christopher Mews: Houses 1-5

• A 1970’s development within an enclosed and gated courtyard, except for No 1, with entrance door onto Penzance Street, and metal/wooden verandah to first floor; all brick, with woodwork presently painted white. The whole is very much of its flaky time, if fairly inoffensive; certainly (and presently) vulnerable to decay, and by no means near the quality of its context.

• Nos 2-5 The structure and design are as above, except that the houses are enclosed behind gates, scarcely visible from the street, and thus equally inoffensive.

Nos 22-28 consecutive

• A modest, but pleasing, mid-19th Century terrace • Three storeys, no basements, all stock brick. • Each house is gabled onto the street elevation. • Narrow round-headed double sash windows under the gables to

the second floors. • Vertical four-light glazing bars to windows of Nos 22, 26-28, plate

glass to windows of No 24 • Round-headed windows and doors to ground floor, the latter

including plate-glass lunettes • Some doors are original, but most have had plate glass inserted

into the long double panels. • Original fleur-de-lys railings to small front gardens, poorly

maintained; all with original gates except No 28, which is modern wrought iron.

• No 28 has also replaced the original railings with tubular horizontal rails.

North side, between Crossways and 46 St James’s Gardens

21 Miranda House

• Flats 1-21, owned and administered by Octavia Hill Housing and Care)

• A design typical of the 1980’s, uninspired, if inoffensive, and small in scale. A great design opportunity lost.

• Three storeys, no basement, all stock brick, except render to second floor.

• Single roof, pitched towards the street elevation. • Lateral “builders’ catalogue” windows of no distinction.

Soft spots/threats

• The only buildings of any architectural value are 22-28. Art 4.2 control is required to protect them against alterations to the architectural details of their façades and the possibility of rendering and painting

• It would theoretically be possible to knock down the garden walls onto the street at 22-28, to create a hardstanding for a car. This should be resisted by appropriate Art 4.2 and 4.1 direction

• For the other buildings in the street, the only risk is an application to demolish and rebuild. In this case, critical guidelines should be:

o no increase in height o a design to fit in with its surroundings, - ie to fit with the mid-Victorian houses, 22-28, and the pub

on the corner, The Academy o Equally, the opportunity to improve on the existing non-descript buildings





22-28

None

None


22-28 None None


(a) Hardstandings

None 22-28

None

(b) Enclosures: None None Include 22-28

Portland Road By Shirley Nicholson for Norland Conservation Society Soft spots/threats: No listed buildings Art 4’s are patchy: more comprehensive control is required. Details summarised below. 48

102

134

Painting stucco in odd colours (as at 48, 53): the norm is for all stucco detailing to be painted white; at present there is no control over paint colour; 48 in particular illustrates what a mess the street could become if all owners decided for an excess of individuality in their choice of colour for these details. The ultimate solution is of course an Art 4.1 to specify white for all stucco detailing for all houses in the street. On the other hand, the choice of colours used for stucco detailing at 102 (above Fired Earth) is eccentric and pleasing, and sets off the contrasting coloured brick design around the windows well. However, the colour scheme at 134 is less well chosen and not successful. An Art 4.1 direction would be required to bring this under control.

114

71-75

Painting and rendering brickwork: Portland Road includes some disastrous examples of this, where interesting coloured brickwork detail has been painted over (as at 114) thus destroying the unity and original design idea of the whole terrace. Painting of brickwork at 71-75 is less disastrous, but nevertheless not what was intended. Article 4.2 directions are required to control any further attempts.

22-78

Infills at second floor level above front doors: houses on the east side (22 – 78) are built as pairs, with the front doors of each pair on the outside and adjoining the front door of the next house. Originally, this left a gap between each pair at second floor level. Many of the houses have chosen to fill in this gap to make more rooms at second floor; in some cases, the house on the right has filled in, the house on the left has not. The design of the second-floor windows of these infills varies widely, and none are satisfactory. As a guideline for future developments, (1) if the house next door already has an infill, the design of the new infill window should match the existing next door; (2) if neither house has filled in, the window design of any new infill should follow the design of the existing window below it at first floor level. Roof balconies with railings above these infills should not be

allowed.

1-41

Ugly exterior pipework and TV cables hanging across façades spoils design integrity: there are examples of this all along the street on both sides. Some of the worst are on the west side (1 – 41). Others examples include 61, 81, 105, 123-127. Whenever permission is requested for any alterations to any of the houses in the street, the opportunity should be taken to persuade the owner to remove ugly pipework and wiring to inside the wall.

78

Possibility of front garden parking on East side: so far this has only happened at 78, and, given the need for light in basement front rooms, the opportunity is limited. But Art 4.1 direction is required to prevent the possibiliity of any further attempts to destroy these attractive small front gardens.

121 Roof terraces with trellis surrounds: there are a few houses where this has happened – with or without planning permission is not known eg at 121 and 125 (as well as 2 Penzance Place, next door to 121). In future, with Art 4.1 control, this should not be allowed: the guideline

should be no roofline fixtures or furniture visible from street level on the opposite side of the street.

Rear alterations and extensions: - The standard guidelines for rear extensions in Conservation Areas should be followed - No two-storey extensions allowed: general guideline should be that extensions higher than the garden party

walls should not be allowed - CD66 (alterations to Listed Buildings) and CD47 should apply: particular attention should be paid to the

detailed design of any addition, not allowing external materials and finishes which would not be in character with the original building; original architectural features, and later features of interest, both internal and external, should be preserved.





East side (even numbers only): 22 – 52, 84 – 94, (Art 4.2 – Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 – App D) West side (odd numbers only): 1 – 41 (Art 4.2 – Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 – App D

East side (even numbers only): 18 – 20, 54 – 82 West side (odd numbers only): 43 – 117 (49 & 53 terrible – no control), 121 – 139, 143 - 179

East side (even numbers only): 16, 16a-d, 18 -20, 54 – 80, 82, 96 – 100, 102 – 136 West side (odd numbers only): 41a, 43 (“Flat iron” building) – or list?, 45 – 117, Cowshed (119?), 121 - 179

Preventing rendering and painting of brickwork:

East side (even numbers only): 22 – 50 West side (odd numbers only): 1 – 31 NB No 3, brickwork painted , 33 – 41, 93 – 117 NB No 93 brickwork painted, 121 - 137

East side (even numbers only): 18 – 20 West side (odd numbers only): 45 – 59, 67 – 75 (71 – 75 now painted)

East side (even numbers only): 16, 16a-d, 18-20, 52-80, 84-94, 96 -100, 104-136 West side (odd numbers only): 41a, 43 (“Flat iron” building), 45 – 117, 121 – 179

(a) Hardstandings: None 20 - 78 (b) Enclosures:

None

17-21 (rear garden walls) 20-78*

Exterior painting:

None

East side (even numbers only): 18 – 50, 84 – 94 (Art 4.1 not applied for? – Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 - App I) West side (odd numbers only): 1 – 41 (Art 4.1 not applied for? – Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 - App I)

(Emphasis on white (or off-white?) for architectural details, windows, door surrounds, cornices, balconies, porches, etc, rather than attempt to control colour of stucco façades) East side (even numbers only): 16, 16a-d, 18-20, 52 – 80 (only?), 82, 84-94, 96-100, 102-136 West side (odd numbers only): 1-31, 41a, 43 (“Flat iron” building), 45 – 117, Cowshed (119?), 121-139, 141, 143-179

West side: starting southern (HOLLAND PARK AVENUE) end 118A

Estate Agent on corner of Holland Park Avenue. little shop {118a) behind. This has two floors and basement with a nice shop window and 3 windows on 1st floor. Single story extension at side of painted brick with a quadrant glass roof. Good front door with arched surround.

Terrace 1-31

Art 4 for: - Doors, windows, balconies and architectural details - Preventing rendering of brickwork Need to control colour (should be listed, nice details) Three storeys & basement in good order, very handsome. Painted stucco on basement and ground floors, unpainted brick above {except 3, painted brick.) Projecting stucco pillared porches on 13 - 19 and 29 - 31, other porches non-projecting with pilasters beside doors with small fanlights. Keystones above doors.

Mostly good cornices but no dentils. Nice window surrounds on 1st floor with mini lions' heads on keystones. Ground floor windows have projecting sills supported by corbels. Vertical painted stucco moulding of narrow barley-sugar twist between houses. Good front doors except 27 with unsuitable modern door. Good original railings up both sides of front steps on all houses. Small front gardens with variable low painted stucco walls and occasional modern railings.

Interesting floor plan with staircase turning 'wrong' way and we next to front door with narrow window. A terrible rubbish dump outside 17; has been so for 30 years. Can nothing be done? No 3 has brickwork painted

Terrace 33 - 41a.

Art 4 for: - Doors, windows, balconies and architectural details (not including 41a) - Preventing rendering of brickwork (not including 41a) - Exterior painting (not including 41a) • Three storeys and basement with angular bay windows. • No garden. • Lower floors painted stucco. 2nd and 3rd floors unpainted brick. • Projecting sills with corbels on ground floor bay windows,

moulded window surrounds at 1st floor. • Good cornices but no dentils. • No porches. 4 panel front doors with square fanlights. • Houses at either end (33 and 41) have tripartite windows with

moulded surrounds at 1st and 2nd floors: at 41 these have been badly re-done, all detail removed.

• Good railings. • No. 41a is an addition to the terrace and smaller with no

basement or front steps but similar painted stucco bay window; unpainted brick above and good railings.

POTTERY LANE here 43

(List?) No Art 4’s • Three Storey 'Flat iron' corner block (Pottery Lane on west side).

No basement or garden, no railings. Good order. • Painted stucco, rusticated on ground floor side elevations. No

dentils on top cornice.

• Large curved windows on rounded front at ground floor. • 1st floor curved Venetian style window has good mouldings with

arch over centre and blind panels on each side. • At 1st floor level running round both sides a projecting string

course with dentils beneath. • At first floor level small arched window on Pottery Lane side and

two windows on Portland Road side. • New 6 panel front door.

Terrace 45 - 53.

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork, and control colour • Three storeys, no front garden, no basement or railings. • Rusticated painted stucco on ground floor, unpainted brick above. • Top cornices missing. • 45 has no rustication and is double fronted. • No 47 has no front door, entrance on Pottery Lane at rear. • All 1st floor windows have good plaster hoods. • Front doors changed: modern 6 panels on 45, 49, 51, 53, 55. • Big ugly new shop windows on ground floor at 49. • Crude new window from ground to basement level at 53. • Good 4-panel door at 51, with pretty curved fanlight above • All other fanlights square.

51 and 53 all stucco painted in colour rather than white (bluey grey and buff)

Terrace 55 – 59

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork, and control colour Three storeys and basement, no garden. Painted stucco ground floor and basement, unpainted brick above. Top cornices missing. Good window hoods at 1st floor level. Simple pilastered doorcases, small fanlights. Six panel door at 55, four panels at 57, 59. Good original railings, no gates.

Terrace 61 – 65

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork, and control colour Three storeys and basement, no garden. Painted stucco, rusticated ground floor. Top cornices missing. 63 & 65 have lost the tops of their front door surrounds and have nasty approaches. 61 has nice fat balusters beside front steps. Railings good, gates missing on Nos. 61 & 65. Front doors four panel, small fanlights.

Terrace 67 - 83.

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork, and control colour Three storeys and basement, no garden. In good order. Rusticated stucco ground floor, upper floors all painted brick or stucco, except 67 & 69 unpainted. Projecting handsome stucco porches with twin columns, except 71 which has porch missing and crude approach up steps to front door. Cornices vary, mostly shadows of their former selves except for good ones at 67, 69 & 71, which stili have their original dentlls. Very good railings and gates, except no gates at 77. Nice fat moulded balusters beside front steps on 69 and 75, replaced by painted stucco mini-wails everywhere else. Front doors nearly all good four panel; 65 has two panels, 67 & 69 have six panels. 71 – 75 Painted brickwork on upper storeys – should be resisted 81 has unfortunate downpipe right down middle of façade

Terrace 85 - 91

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork, and control colour Three storeys and basement, no garden. This terrace projects slightly from the previous one. Painted stucco except 93, painted brick. No cornice on 87, 89. Projecting pillared porches except 89 {which may never have had one). Nice fat moulded balusters beside front steps on 85, 87. Porch at 91 makes a very awkward junction with next length of terrace. Good railings, no gate at 85.

Terrace 93 – 117

Art 4 for: - Preventing rendering of brickwork Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement, no garden. • Slightly set back from previous terrace and not as well designed. • Painted stucco ground floor, unpainted brick above. • Cornices residual, none on Nos. 95 & 97 but good one at 93

although dentlls are missing. • Heavy pillared porches which do not match with varying top parts

and pillar dimensions, unsure whether bad original architect or bad repairs.

• Porch at 111 has disappeared. • Paired doors at 101 and 103 in middle of terrace, these two

house slightly set forward. • Good railings and gates except very bad new ones at No. 105,

and gates missing at Nos. 95 & 97. • Nice fat moulded balusters on front steps of 101. Similar

balusters but much smaller on 109, 113, 114. • Other houses have painted stucco mini walls beside steps. • Basement window altered at 105. • Front doors all four panel except 105 replaced with three panels

and 103 with six panels. • 115 & 117 have mansard top floor added.

Brickwork painted at 93

119 Corner block.

(List The Cowshed “flat iron” building?) OR Art to control colour? • The Rug Company and The Cowshed {cafe and 'grooming'

parlour). • "Flat iron" shape to match 43 at northern end of terrace. • Three storeys painted stucco • No basement, no garden. • Awkward junction with previous terrace with unsuitable big

modern windows at ground floor for The Rug Company; window mouldings destroyed on 1st and 2nd floor.

• At 1st floor level string course with dentils below continues along side of block and round corner along return side on Penzance Place.

• Big windows round the curved end at ground floor; three windows at 1st and 2nd floor, and pilasters on heavy bases running up the otherwise blank sides from 1st to 2nd floor. All still largely original and quite handsome.

PENZANCE PLACE here. Terrace 121 – 127

Art 4 for: Preventing rendering of brickwork Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys, no basement, no garden, no railings. • Residual cornices. • Ground floor painted stucco, plain brick above. • 125 once a shop front, possibly 127 as well. • Nice continuous bow fronted balcony railings at first floor level. • Six panel doors at 121 and 127, others four panel • Trellis round roof garden at 121 without planning permission?

Terrace 129 - 139

Art 4 for: Preventing rendering of brickwork (129 - 137) Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys, no basement, no garden, no railings. • Joins {with slight rebate) terrace 121 - 127. • Plain brick above good shop fronts with nice egg and dart

moulded string course above fascia and below balcony which runs whole length with bow fronted railings.

• No dentils on cornices. • 133 - 137 Is Julie's Restaurant. • 139 on corner of Hippodrome Place is spoilt by unsympathetic

new shop window and loss of egg and dart moulding above fascia.

HIPPODROME PLACE here. 141 “The Cross”

Art 4 for: - Preventing rendering of brickwork Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys painted stucco, no basement, no garden. • Curved corner shop with 2 panel door on apex, good shop

window. • Tripartite windows on curve at 1st and 2nd floors. • Slight projection on either side of curve with rusticated quoins

running up 1st and 2nd floors. • Good heavy cornice with big dentils on Portland Road side. • No windows or cornice on Hippodrome Place side. • Good railings.

Terrace 143 - 157

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement, no garden. • Good terrace well restored. • Painted stucco, rusticated ground floor. • Paired front doors with curved fanlights under flat moulded

porches, (157 the only one to have fanlight tracery). • Pretty curved window heads on ground floor with nice Coade

stone keystones, projecting sills. • 1st floor windows linked by string course at sill level. • Handsome heavy cornice with big dentils {except at 147). • Tall parapet above cornice divided into two panels {except at

155). • Most basement windows altered. • Good railings with some replacements, bad new ones at 155. • Gates on 147 and 153 only. • New six panel doors on 143, 145, 157; four panels at 153; all

others original 2 panel. 159 and 161

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement, no garden. • Handsome pair of houses in centre of terrace. • Painted stucco, rusticated ground floor. • Slight projection with rusticated quoins running up full height. • Good mouldings on round-headed 1st floor windows linked by

string course at sill level. • Heavy cornice with big dentils, parapet above. • Paired front doors with square tops under flat moulded pediment. • Good railings, no gates.

Terrace 163 - 177

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement, no garden. • Painted stucco, rusticated ground floor. • Matches terrace 143 – 157, except dentlls on cornices missing. • Parapet missing on 167 - 175. • Most basement windows altered, • Good railings, some replacements. • Six panel doors on 169 - 175, four panel on 163, 2 panel on 165,

177.

179

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Corner block. • Three storeys and basement, rounded end, no garden. • Painted stucco, rusticated ground floor on Portland Road side. • This once matched 141, the shop at the other end of the terrace. • Slight projection with three bands of rusticated quoinstones

running up 1st and 2nd floors on Portland Rd side, tripartite windows on 1st & 2nd floors.

• Six panel door on rounded corner with small windows either side. • Modern railings OK. Other side plain: Badly rebuilt round

headed ground floor windows surrounded by crude rustication and horrid imitation Coade stone trimmings.

NB Unfortunate tangle of telephone wires destroys appearance of whole street at this point. BT should be encouraged to put them underground. PORTLAND RQAD, east side (starting from Holland Park Avenue end) Holland Park Terrace

• Pizzeria on corner of Holland Park Avenue. • Modern rebuild, shops and garages below.

Portland House

• Three storeys, painted stucco, no basement. • Two modern windows and a door at ground floor, three windows

on 1st and 2nd floors. • 1st floor wlnodws have plaster hoods. • Good cornice.

Terrace 2 - 14 Portland Road

• Quite good shop fronts, fascias divided by plaster pilasters, small cornice above fascia with dentils below on 8 - 14.

• Facades above shops set back allowing for roof terraces, some with modern railings.

• 2 - 6 have two storeys of stucco above shops, 8 -14 one storey stucco, with cornice. 10 - 14 have modern mansard roofs set back behind cornice.

• 14 has door on corner and same fascia details on short return into Ladbroke Road.

LADBROKE ROAD here. 88 Ladbroke Road

Three storey brick new build corner house, no windows on Portland Road side.

16e Portland Road

Yard with modern tall iron fence and gates. Open parking lot beside It. Two storey stucco building set back behind yard.

Terrace 16d - 16a

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement, no garden. • Bay window to ground • Basement painted stucco, plain brick on 1st and 2nd floors. • 16d and 16a have one large tripartite window at 1st and 2nd floor. • Good cornice and railings.

16

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Wide frontage, house in two parts, no garden. • Right hand side: • Three storeys painted brick • Two windows on each floor • No front door • Balcony at 1st floor with bowed railings. • Good cornice. • Left hand side: • Wider than usual: two storeys with big pediment instead of

cornice, painted stucco. • Circular cartouche in centre of pediment. • Three windows on 1st floor, centre window taller and wider than

others. • Three modern windows and two doors at ground level

Pair: 18 - 20

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Taller than usual, three storeys and basement • Rusticated ground floor, painted stucco, plain brick above, no

garden. • One wider than average window at 1st and 2nd floor. • 1st floor window is in three parts under flat plaster hood

supported by brackets, • 2nd floor a triple arch divided by pilasters with moulded surrounds

and keystones, one pane on each side and a blind panel In the middle.

• 18 has small balcony at 1st floor window; cornice dentlls missing • 20 has good cornice with dentlls. • Steep steps up to recessed front doors with pilasters on either

side, square fanlights. • Good railings. • Side entrance passage with good gate on left of 20.

Terrace 22 – 80

Art 4 for: - Doors, windows, balconies and architectural details (22 – 52 only) - Preventing rendering of brickwork (22 – 50 only) - Exterior painting (22 – 50 only) Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour A handsome and unusual range, three storeys and basement, which breaks slightly forward and back In an Irregular fashion, with varying windows and doors, all under one shallow pitched roof with overhanging eaves. Three storeys and basement.

22 - 28.

• First four houses of terrace described above. • Rusticated stucco ground floor, plain brick at 1st and 2nd floors. • One round headed window at ground floor. • One wide tripartite window with moulded surround under flat hood

at 1st floor of 26 and 28 (type A) • Similar window at 24 and 26 (type B), but with heavier mouldings,

including pilaster divisions and brackets under sills (type B). • 2nd floor windows: three small arches linked by moulded

surrounds and divided by plaster pilasters with small capitals and keystones, centre arch has blind panel.

• Pillared porches, 26 has lost all decoration and has ugly newish door.

• Square fanlights except on 28 which begins a pattern used in next part of terrace with round arch and fanlight over front doors.

• 22 not visible above ground floor due to scaffolding and boarding. • No gardens but space for plants in wide basement 'area'.

30 - 58

Art 4 for: - Doors, windows, balconies and architectural details (30-52) - Preventing rendering of brickwork (30 – 50) - Exterior painting (30 – 50) • Upper part unpainted brick • Window details at 1st floor the same but Type A and Type B

alternate in pairs. • At 2nd floor, same as previous 22 - 28, but at 38, 46 and 52 the

centre arch is glazed. • Three-light bay windows to ground and basement, painted stucco

topped with balcony, • Balcony with short sections of balusters between small piers -

balusters missing at 40.

• Between each pair of houses a narrow recessed frontage of palnted stucco, some with one floor above the doors as at 32, 34, 40, 56, 58; others with two floors.

• Windows in these recessed parts are sometimes round headed, sometimes square.

• These upper parts do not always make a matching pair, the second storey usually an obvious later addition, although some may be authentic 19th C.

• Paired front doors with round arches and half-moon fanlights. • Most have four panel doors. • Basement 'area' often banked up to make a good garden. • Railings and gates fair • 48: all stucco decorative elements painted a horrid pink with pale

blue window frames (stands out like a sore thumb)

34 - 40.

• These four houses different from those on either·slde, - not linked by recessed frontage.

• Front doors are flat topped with square fanlights. • Same bay windows at 34 and 40, but smaller ones at 36 and 38

which are very awkwardly placed, not directly below first floor windows. First and second floors the same as before.

42 - 50.

• Return to pattern as decribed under 30 - 58 but from 42 to 52, only vestigial rustication on ground floor. Round headed front doors at 42 - 48 have keystone decorated with bald-headed man.

• Balconies over bay window at 42 and 44 have short lengths of fat

stucco balusters between solid bands. Balconies at 46 and 48 have curly pierced stucco decoration instead of balusters.

• 48 has original blind-box on first floor window. • 50 has lost all mouldings and fancy trim round bay window and

has no bald-headed man on keystone over front door. • Glazing bars at 42, 44 and 46 do not conform to type, have been

modernised. • 50 Is the last to have plain brick on upper floors.

52 – 80

Art 4 for: - Doors, windows, balconies and architectural details (52 only) • Rustication at ground floor, painted stucco. • Upper floors painted stucco. • Flat topped front doors with small fanlights in recessed section

with tall rectangular windows above on 1st and 2nd floors except 54, 56 and 58, which have only one storey.

• 52 and 54 have small balusters on the balconies. • 56 is the last to have triple arched window at second floor. • From 56 - 80 flat pilasters beside front doors.

58 - 80.

• Houses a little taller than previously but same pattern {three storeys and basement, bay windows, all painted stucco under continuous roof with overhanging eaves)

• From 58 – 76, at 1st and 2nd floor, tripartite windows similar to Type B but with wider and with heavier mouldings; pilaster divisions have small capitals and four brackets below sill.

• Smaller Type A windows at 78 and 80. • From 58 to 80 moulding above bay and below balcony runs

contlnuosly as a string course. • No rustication on ground floor except at 78 and 80. • Recessed section with two storeys above front door • Tall windows at 1st floor and square ones at 2nd floor • Only one storey at 70. • Front doors with pilasters on either side except 70 - 74. • Short length of cornice with dentils above first floor windows of

recessed section at 64 - 80.

• Bay window balconies have plain stucco parapets, - except 62 and 68 which have pierced curly stucco inserts (not the same pattern as 46 and 48) and 72, 78 and 80 which have balusters.

• 60 has pilasters on angles of the bay. • Rounded corners to plaster moulding nearest to glass of bay

windows at 62, 66, 68, 74 - 80. • Decorative dwarf railings on sill around bay window at 64 - 72

and 78, not all matching.

80

• Same as 78 but with horrid modern porch projecting to edge of street, small window at the side, flat roof. Large modern front door.

• Thick rounded corner mouldings have been added to front door and basement window.

• This is the last of the houses with pitched roof and overhanging eaves and with large 'area' for garden plants.

82

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details and control colour • Three storeys and basement painted stucco, projecting forward

from house on either side, (return to classic pattern of two windows on each upper floor and no garden).

• Plaster hoods on 1st floor Windows, square fanlight over door. • Good cornice and railings.

Terrace 84 - 94

Art 4 for: Doors, windows, balconies and architectural details Need Art 4 to protect prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement, no garden. • Rusticated painted stucco ground floor, unpainted rendering

above, except at 84 and 94 which are painted. Balcony all along at 1st floor level, nice bowed railings.

• Pilasters either side of front doors, square fanllghts. Mixed quality doors

• Good railings and gates

Terrace of shops, 96, 98, 100

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys, no basement. • Painted stucco with good shop fronts (especially 98) • Two windows above shops on first and second floors. • 100 is on the corner of Clarendon Cross, with door at the apex

and another shop window at the side. • Balcony with nice continuous bow front railings at 1st floor level

goes round corner and over two more shops in Clarendon Cross. • Good cornice with dentils also runs all the way round, except one

short secton of dentils missing on Clarendon Road side.

CLARENDON CROSS here. 102

(Need Art 4 to protect architectural details and control colour) • Three storey corner shop, unpainted brick at 1st and 2nd

floors, door at apex. • Modern windows both sides on ground floor. • Painted stucco cornice, no dentils. • On Portland Road side: • At 1st floor three windows with arched painted stucco hoods

and surrounds, linked by string course supported by brackets.

• At 2nd floor 5 small windows divided by painted pilasters under brick arches, centre window blind.

• On Clarendon Cross side: • At 1st floor tripartite window with heavy stucco moulded

surround, arch over centre section, brackets below sill. • Three small linked windows under brick arches at 2nd floor.

Terrace 104 - 110

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys, no basement • Rusticated stucco at ground floor, brick above. • Large tripartite windows on 1st floor with stucco mouldings

(as above). • 2nd floor three small linked windows under brick arches

(pilasters?). • Tall stucco parapet, no cornice. • Doors with tall fanlights. • 104 has a shop window and no ground floor rustication.

Terrace 112 – 124

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement, set back from previous

terrace, no garden. • Rusticated painted stucco ground floor, plain brick above, • 114, 122 ,124, 126 and 128 all have painted brickwork: a

pity as the coloured articulation in the brickwork adds interesting character to the terrace

• 1st floor windows with stucco surrounds and square hoods, • 2nd floor windows under brick arches. • Cornice quite good. • Good four panel doors except at 124, small square

fanlights. • Railings good.

Terrace 126 – 132

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys and basement matching the four houses {104

-110) at the other end of this range. • No garden • Rusticated ground floor painted stucco, plain brick above, • 126, 128 painted brick: a pity as the coloured articulation in

the brickwork adds interesting character to the terrace • Large tripartite windows on 1st floor (as above). • 2nd floor three small linked round-headed windows divided

by pilasters with small capitals. • Doors with small fanlights. • Good cornice with dentlls on all except 132. • Good railings.

134

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Corner house, wider than usual, nearly matching 102 at

other end of terrace but not a shop. • Three storeys, no basement. • Rusticated ground floor, unpainted brick above. • At ground floor on Clarendon Road side, two windows and a

door, • At 1st floor three arched windows linked by string course,

centre pane blind. • At 2nd floor five small arched windows divided by plaster

pilasters, blind pane in centre. • On side return, one window at ground floor, tripartite window

on 1st floor with centre arch and stucco surround. • Three small linked windows at 2nd floor. • Good cornice with dentils. • No railings.

136, round the corner

Need Art 4 to protect architectural details, prevent stuccoing and painting brickwork and control colour • Three storeys. no basement. • Painted stucco ground floor, brick above. • Deeply recessed front door under flattened arch with

keystone forming a porch, • recessed ground floor window under matching arch, linked

by rusticated columns and heavy moulldings. Windows at 1st and 2nd floors match those on 134

Princedale Road Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Robin Price (updated to 9/2/2010) East side: Rear gardens of 1 - 29 Portland Road 1 - 29

• The garden walls of (1-29?) Portland Road precede the houses numbered as in Princedale Road.

• It is important to note that all but three of these walls (those belonging to Nos 17,19 and 21 Portland Road) are now pierced for garage doors with hard-standing or garages behind.

• The three original walls in original decorative and two-coloured brick, should if possible be preserved, as also the two mature trees and one small tree within these gardens, as very much a feature of Princedale Road.

• The wall of No 17 is in danger, owing to current building works, as also the survival of its tree, despite a preservation order on it.

• The garden walls of 17-21 Portland Road should have Art 4.1. protection.

In general, Princedale Road has preserved its character, owing to extensive refurbishments, most of which are sympathetic to its 1840’s origin. Roof lines have been preserved, despite intermittent roof gardens and inevitable TV aerials. In all, there is a pleasing and acceptable diversity within an overall 1840’s unity, a tribute in itself to the unity of the post-Georgian culture, even when expressed by Victorian speculative building. This unity in diversity should be protected by an Art 4 direction. East side: even numbers: 2-116 2 - 10

• Three-storey, rather perfunctory, (and originally inexpensive), late-Victorian terrace in two-coloured brick, which retains its period charm:

• ground floor stuccoed with plain bay windows, stock brick on upper floors, featuring a lighter brick in window surrounds on both first and second floors

• an unusual light brick and red brick frieze with decorative brickwork to the parapet

• the south flank wall (belonging to No 2) continues the frieze to the parapet, and exhibits three pilastered round-headed arches with decorative capitals, and coloured diamond-patterned brickwork within the arches. This feature is unusual, is presently in good order, and should be preserved. No 2 is presently in poorly maintained condition

• windows throughout are 4-paned plate glass. • Doors, most of which seem original, have plain fanlights above • Should have Art 4.2 protection in respect of doors and

windows and architectural details of façades

12

Three storeys with recessed second storey behind a small garden terrace: • modern, but appropriate, with rusticated and stuccoed ground

floor, with three-light window with Georgian glazing bars • Door has Georgian corniced hood, supported by scrolls • Plate-glass windows to first and second floors • Fleur-de-lys railings renewed

14

Prince of Wales public house: an undistinguished and poorly-maintained exterior, though of continued roof-line, and of the right period: • Three storeys plus cellars • Victorian groundfloor plate glass frontage, of which some small

panels of original engraved glass remain • the whole now painted an unimaginative dull mid-brown, lettering

of pub name above ground floor; name only on swinging pub sign (this should be pictorially painted)

• plate-glass windows to first floor; Georgian glazing bars to second floor windows

16 -18

Four storeys plus basements: • Rebuilt in late 20C in varied Georgian-style modes, roofline

preserved, though the cornice to the parapet is discontinuous • Varied fenestration to ground floor; Georgian-style glazing bars on

first and second floors • 16-18 stucco throughout, presently painted white • 20-22 rusticated stucco to ground floor, presently painted white,

stock brick above

20 - 28

Three storeys, no basements: • 24 - 28 Plain-fronted very modern Georgian-style in stock brick:

o 24 and 28 presently painted white throughout o 26 presently painted white to ground floor

• Various modern railings, some following traditional patterns

30 - 36

• 30-34 three storeys, no basement • 36 three storeys plus basement • all modern Georgian, • unpainted stock brick • all with moulded surrounds to windows, those on ground and first

floors with cornices, supported at first floor by scrolls • Georgian glazing bars • the cornice continued at parapet level

38

38 - Three storeys plus basement: - modern Georgian of different pattern - stock brick throughout - round-hooded door

40 - Three storeys, no basement

- A simpler modern Georgian, all stock brick - Georgian glazing bars

42 Three storeys, no basement - Rebuilt Georgian in yet simpler mode, all stock brick - Plate glass windows

44 - 82

A near-unity of 1840’s construction, slanted gradually westwards: • the cornice to the parapets discontinuous, but the essential roof-

line preserved • 44-62 Three storeys, no basement • most (except nos 44-50 & 54) painted throughout; the remainder

with stock brick to first and second floors • many windows with moulded surrounds, and most with moulded

cornices (without scrolls) to windows on first floor • many ground floor premises are former shops; some remain as

shops • - 64-82 Three storeys plus basements, except no 82 • All (except no 82, painted stucco throughout) are stuccoedat

ground floor level (or former, or existing, shops) • All first and second floors stock brick, with moulded window

surrounds, and cornices to first floor windows • Georgian glazing bars throughout • NB No 72 is a late 20C rebuild to a simpler pattern, which lacks

moulded window surrounds, and on first floor, has varied the typical Georgian glazing bars

• The whole terrace 44 – 82 should have Art 4.2 protection in respect of doors, windows and architectural details

Here is Penzance Place, followed by 12A Penzance Place, and the backs of houses in Pottery Lane, all in keeping with the 1840’s architectural patterns. (The numbering here is discontinuous, which may indicate that the backs of the houses now in Pottery Lane were once numbered as in Princedale Road.)

84

No 84 Princedale Road, at the junction of Penzance Place and Princedale Road (North East Corner), is a corner building which appears at one time to have been a public house. This three storey building is built in stock brick stuccoed to first floor level with small ground floor windows set between pilasters in large arched surrounds. Elaborate balcony railings, and window box supports and the pierced balcony parapet form the main decorative features. Although this building cannot be seen from long distance views, it provides a focus of interest on the open junction of Penzance Place and Princedale Road.

86 - 90

92

Three storeys, no basement. House presently much decayed: - stucco to ground floor, brick to first and second floors - all presently painted dark slate blue - three slit windows to ground floor - plain surrounds to first and second floor windows

94

Three storeys, no basement - All stuccoed, presently painted light powder blue - Fenestration as Nos 96-104

96 - 104

Three storeys, no basements - stuccoed in variouscolours to ground floor; stock brick, unpainted,

above - at first floor, moulded surrounds to windows, with cornices - at second floor, moulded surrounds to windows, no cornices - four-light plate glass windows throughout - doors have large glass panels for light in hall

106

Three storeys, no basement: - Eccentric, but attractive, house, presently painted mid-grey - French-style casement windows to first and second floors, with

decorative “balcony” to first floor windows - Ground floor: “builder’s catalogue” plate glass window - Cartouche, tasselled, within rounded hood to cornice

108 Vacant site

110-112

Three storeys, no basement. Presently “Princedale Road surgery” and offices: - modern stock brick (? 1970’s structure) - stucco to ground floor, with “shop” windows - two-light plate glass windows to first and second floors

114

Three storeys, no basement: - stucco to ground floor, stock brick above - round-headed three-light windows to first- and second floors - Leaded panes to ground floor casement window

116 Marquess of Zetland public house site, under delayed conversion to residential: - Three storeys, plus cellars

Here is Hippodrome Place. Princedale Road ends. West side, odd numbers, 5-91, starting at Princes Yard Princes Yard: See description in Section 3.1.3 Modern buildings

5-7

1870’s addition to southern end of distinguished 1840’s terrace: • three storeys, plus basement. Originally two houses, now as one,

with four lateral residential units across the two original houses • at first and second floors, parti-coloured brick to Princedale Road

elevation restored in mid-1980’s to original • round-headed windows to first floor, square-headed to second

floor, Victorian plate-glass sashes at first and second storeys on Princedale Road elevation

• at ground-floor, new rusticated elevation to Princedale Road, with recently inserted sash windows with Georgian glazing bares

• south flank walls and windows much altered, 1970’s “builders’ catalogue” windows; two more to be inserted, following present conversion of ground floor from office to residential

• should have Art 4.1 protection for paint colour; and 4.2 for doors, windows and architectural details, and preventing rendering/painting of brickwork

9 - 33

1840’s terrace: three storeys, plus basements. A distinguished terrace, restored c 1960-1980 by individual owners to high and uniform standard. Same stone-coloured paint to stucco and window surrounds throughout. A testament to what can be achieved by responsible and uncoerced ownership: • full run of original spear-headed railings to areas • full run of original balcony rails at first-floor level • Georgian sash windows, long on first floor, all with Georgian

glazing bars, except No 19, which has plate glass windows to ground floor

• Hooded cornices supported by acanthus scrolls to first floor windows

• Street doors, with cornices above, supported by plain pilasters, the halls lighted by windows above doors, now much varied, some of which are original

• stone steps to doors, some of which may be original • moulded cornice surmounting second floor, runs full length of

terrace • Should have Art 4.1 protection for paint colour; and 4.2 for

doors, windows and architectural details, and preventing rendering/painting of brickwork

Here is Queensdale Road 2A Queensdale Road, the black house, used to be Carolan, the local grocer: 35A &B

Both rebuilt in late 1960’s/early 1970’s. Gardens on roofs of both: 35A, in stucco, presently coloured powder-blue: - three storeys, no basement - two windows, centred by door, on ground floor, with lateral

Georgian panes - reasonably acceptable 35B, in stock brick: - also three storeys, no basement - fenestration similar to 35A, except that the north-most first floor

window is “French”, and is ornamented by a modern “Spanish” balcony of traditional design

- reasonably acceptable

37 - 45

1840’s terrace, 3 storeys, no basements. A pleasant and even distinguished terrace, to be preserved, and if possible, improved. Again, owners have preserved unity of colour: • stucco, painted white, to ground floor • original cast-iron railings throughout, with gates, fleur-de-lys heads • corniced heads to first floor windows, supported by acanthus

scrolls (one missing to left side of first floor window of No 37) • Street doors (some original) with cornices supported by pilasters

with capitals • moulded surrounds to second floor windows, all presently painted

white • only No 43 has Victorian plate glass; the remainder have Georgian

glazing bars

• plain cornice to parapet, nos 37-43 only • entrance to No 45 (two storeys only, used to be Monty’s, the

ironmonger) is in Princes Place • Garden on roof of No 41 • Should have Art 4.1 protection for paint colour; and 4.2 for


Here is Princes Place 47 - 55

(Nos 47,49, 53 have flats 1,2,3; 51 & 55 are houses). Largely rebuilt behind Princedale Road elevation c 1970’s: • The whole, three storeys, and one long unified basement, plain

stucco to ground floor • Entrance to No 47 in Princes Place, moulded cornice, supported by

pilasters with plain capitals. Door is plain modern panel • Entrances to Nos 49-55 at the rear (with small communal gardens) • Moulded surrounds to windows. Cornices above. No acanthus

scrolls supporting cornices to first floor windows • String course between ground floor and first floor, and another

narrower string course between first floor and second floor, numbers 47-51 only

• Basement area protected by original fleur-de-lys headed railings • The corner of No 49 ornamented by stone/plaster coigns • Should have Art 4.1 protection for paint colour; and 4.2 for


57

The Academy, public house and restaurant

• yard behind, and restaurant extension behind walls of former garden on Princedale Road frontage

• Rusticated to ground floor; modernised but acceptable fenestration to ground floor with awnings, chairs and tables outside on the Princedale Road and Penzance Street frontages

• A plain string course divides ground floor from first floor • Moulded cornices to first floor windows, and plaster “gable” above,

rounded window surrounds to both first and second floor windows. Plate glass windows throughout

• First and second floor corners supported by stone/plaster coigns, rounded plaster corner to Princedale Road and Penzance Street

• centre first and second floor windows to Princedale Road elevation are “blind”

• Should have Art 4.1 protection for paint colour; Art 4.2 protection for doors, windows and architectural details, and preventing rendering/painting of brickwork

59-71 Crossways

1960’s public housing flats, 6 storeys • common garden in front with plain modern railings, fronting

Princedale Road • lateral fenestration, stock brick • undistinguished, and barely acceptable, but partially obscured by

trees on pavement of Princedale Road

73

1840’s structure, chamfered at its corner between Penzance Place and Princedale Road

• stucco throughout, presently painted light cream, windows and doors presently white

• first floor windows moulded surrounds, with moulded cornices • second floor windows moulded surrounds only • all windows have Georgian glazing bars. But ground floor

windows at corner are modern “builder’s Georgian" • Should have Art 4.1 protection for paint colour; Art 4.2

protection for doors, windows and architectural details, and preventing rendering/painting of brickwork

73 - 83

1840’s terrace, continuing the line of No 73, three storeys, plus basements:

• stucco to ground floor, brick to first and second floor • moulded window surrounds to first and ground floors • Georgian glazing bars throughout, moulded cornices to first floor

windows • moulded parapet through out • Ground floor fenestration, as former shops, very varied, but

acceptable, and in harmony with the total context of the street • Should have Art 4.1 protection for paint colour; Art 4.2

protection for doors, windows and architectural details, and preventing rendering/painting of brickwork

85 - 91

c1870’s addition to No 83. Three storeys plus basement lights below, giving straight onto pavement • 85-89 have Georgian glazing bars to ground floor, four-light plate

glass above • stucco to ground floor; stock brick above, spliced into the brick of

No 83 • cornice at parapet level, coarsely tacked onto No 83; cornice line

maintained throughout, despite some individualising • No 91 (offices) continues stucco to ground floor (except that it is

modern rusticated) • Two-light plate glass windows only to first and second floors.

“Pavement-type” bottle glass to ground floor windows on Princedale Road elevation

• Rounded north-east corner, giving onto Princedale Road/ St James C of E Primary School. Small garden and private yard (to no91?) follow

• - modern two-light plate glass fenestration on north elevation

Here is the school playground, followed by Kenley Walk. Princedale Road ends.

Soft spots/threats There are no listed buildings on Princedale Road, and existing Art 4 directions are rather piecemeal, and leave open the possibility of minor disasters. In general, Princedale Road has preserved its character, owing to extensive refurbishments, most of which are sympathetic to its 1840’s origin. Roof lines have been preserved, despite intermittent roof gardens and inevitable TV aerials. In all, there is a pleasing and acceptable diversity within an overall 1840’s unity, a tribute in itself to the unity of the post-Georgian culture, even when expressed by Victorian speculative building. This unity in diversity should be protected by appropiate Art 4 directions.Planning permissions should then aim to retain and enhance the mid-19C character. Summary of Article 4 directions: Existing and Required




9-33, 37-45

2-10, 73-83, 16-42, 44-82, 84 (12A Penzance Place), 86-90 (entrance (and number?)on Pottery Lane, 92-106, 116 The Marquis of Zetland

5-7, 47-55, 57 (The Academy), 85-91?


None 5-7, 9-33, 75-83 (77 & 81 now painted), 2-10,

47-55, 57, 85-91? 20 – 28, 30-36, 42-44 (brickwork already painted)? 52? 56 – 82 (82 brickwork already painted), 84 (= 12A Penzance Place), 86-92 (92 already painted drk blue), 96-104, 116 (Marquis of Zetland)?

Exterior painting: None 9-33, 37-45, 47-55, 2-10, 75-83 (77 & 81 now painted) 20 – 28, 30-36, 42-44 (brickwork already painted)? 46-50 (stuccoed), 52? 54 (stuccoed), 56 – 82 (82 brickwork already painted), 84, 86-92? (92 already painted drk blue), 96-104? 116 (Marquis of Zetland)?

Queensdale Road, Place and Walk Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Keith Hunter and Clive Wilson (updated to 9/2/2010) Photographic Record Queensdale Road: completed by Clive Wilson Queensdale Place and Walk: completed by Keith Hunter 26 June 2009, additions by Clive Wilson 1-3 July

QUEENSDALE ROAD Queensdale Road links the Conservation Area together east to west, and crosses the northern end of Norland Square. Its two terraces to east (2A-16) and west (18-28) of Norland Square form an important part of the setting of the Square, though they are not listed, nor protected by any Article 4 Directions. North side: 8 - 16

The most important terraces in Queensdale Road are 2A – 16 and 18 – 28, which flank Norland Square and should be protected in terms of any alterations to façades, and should be required to be painted in the same colour as Norland Square.

2A

2A is a particular eyesore – painted black from top to toe.

18 - 28

As is 24, newly painted in bright pimento orange

To west of 28, there is a row of 4 garages (in the garden of 38 Addison Avenue – ownership unknown)

Princes Place

The part of Princes Place which exits onto Queensdale Road is best considered here in conjunction with Queensdale Road. With the development of houses at the end of the gardens of Addison Avenue houses as 2 - 4 Carson Terrace, there is a potential threat of further garden grab at the end of the gardens of 40, 42 and 44. This should be resisted. Opposite, on the east side of this branch of Princes Place is No 1 Carson Terrace

30

West of Addison Avenue, No 30, a red brick three-storey building (from 1930’s?) used to be Winsleys, the chemist, and has now been turned into a house with two bow windows on ground floor.

32 - 42

32 – 42, stucco faced, with fairly standard fenestration and doors (wrong glazing bars on 2nd floor of No 32). 36 has former shop-front window at street level. Cornices missing on all. 42 provides an interesting corner feature end to the terrace.

44 & 48

44 used to be the Star & Garter pub. 44 and 48 (there is no 46) are a pair of rebuilds which fit in with Queensdale Road terraces.

50 - 52

50-52 - hideous 50's/60's infill To the west, a garage (in the garden of 11 St Ann's Villas?) - a real "soft spot"

54 - 60

To west of St Ann’s Villas, 54 – 60 are in later 19C style: taller, with raised ground-floor entrance over a basement ; originally all brick-faced with some interesting coloured brick feature detailing. Unfortunately 56 has wrongly been painted blue: the earliest possible opportunity should be taken to restore the original brick façade; further painting should be prevented by Art 4. 58 and 60 have wrong windows, 54 and 56 have correct original design. 54 and 56 have ugly wooden picket fences; 58 and 60 original(?) railings.

62

To the west of No 60 is the Central Gurdwara Sikh Temple at 62

South side: 1 - 9

1 – 9 are original design, but, curiously, with “compressed” ground floor windows; No 7 was Queens Dairy, and still has its shop front window; were all the others originally shop windows as well? All except 7 have been stuccoed and painted.

11a - d

11a – d: A three-storey terrace with bays of leaded lights on first and second floors above a ground floor incorporating garages. Existing different colour schemes highlight the importance of colour unity in this terrace, which should have Art 4 to control paint colours and arhitectural features.

11, 13

11 and 13 (Cranley Lodge) are interesting “feature” houses, with original window and door designs and good detailing (though the dormers on Cranley Lodge are later additions, and out of proportion.)

15 - 27

To the west of Addison Avenue, 15 – 25 make a pleasing classical terrace, which seems to have been completed later with 25 and 27 having less satisfactory proportions (particularly their low front doors and ground floor windows). 15,25,27 cornices missing: reinstatement desirable, - but unlikely?

29 - 37

To the west of Addison Place, the terrace 29 – 37 has brick upper floors with stucco at street level, complete cornices and pleasing window and door frame detailing. 31 has a bad imitation front door; 33 and 37 are missing their railings and have an ugly brick wall, which should be replaced by railings at earliest opportunity. No 29 demonstrates the importance of choosing "gentle pale pastel colour" for ground floor stucco elevations in these terraces

Garages between 37 QR and 10 St AV belong respectively to 37 QR, 7QR, 15 QR and 10 St AV. The plot is very shallow, making it of limited potential for residential development ; current owners are unlikely to be willing to relinquish. If it did prove feasible (i.e. if a developer were to offer a price for these freehold plots too good to refuse) it would be desirable that any redevelopment should be in keeping with 29-37QR.

39 - 57

To west of St Ann’s Villas, 39 – 57 are in good condition, with good window and door features, but missing their cornices (except 51). The painting of 39 (top “band” in same colour as ground floor stucco) shows the importance of sticking to white for all architectural details.

Soft spots/threats: No Listed Buildings and few Art 4 directions (why only 39-57?): This leaves the architectural features of important terraces uncontrolled, particularly: 2A – 16 and 18 – 28, which provide an important setting for the north side of Norland Square, and should be controlled in terms of 4.1 architectural details and 4.2 colour, to fit in with Norland Square Other terraces which need 4.1 protection for architectural details (and where applicable preventing rendering and painting are: 1-9, 11 and 11 A-D, 13 Cranley Lodge, 15 - 27, 29 – 37, 32 – 42, 44 and 48 (there is no 46), 54 – 60 Numbers 11 A-D should present a unity in terms of colour as well as design. Unfortunately the current owner of 11D has decided to go in for buff-coloured paint-work, as opposed to the white chosen for the other houses. At ground floor level, 11 A and 11 C have gone for mid-blue for their garage doors and front door. The choice of colour scheme at 11B seems most in keeping with the design style – white door and window frames and black woodwork for the door and window surrounds (with leaded lights to match the windows at first and second floors. An Article 4.1 should be sought to ensure a uniform colour scheme. 54 – 60 also need protection against hardstandings in front gardens, and 4.1 for enclosures Garages opposite 13Q Rd (Cranley Lodge), in the garden of 38 Addison Avenue (ownership unknown), are free standing. The potential threat of further "garden grab" at the end of the gardens of 40, 42 and 44 Addison Avenue, and the loss of the open space provided by these gardens, as well as these garages, should be resisted. 50-52 (hideous 50's/60's infill) In the event of an application for redevelopment, design and scale of the replacement should be in keeping with 44 and 48. (Note also single garage next to 52 which might be associated with any such move.) Garages between 37 Q Rd and 10 St AV The plot is very shallow, making it of limited potential for residential development ; current owners are unlikely to be willing to relinquish. If it did prove feasible (ie. if a developer were to offer a price for these freehold plots too good to refuse), it would be desirable that any redevelopment should be in keeping with 29-37QR in terms of design and scale. Rear garden developments: - There are a considerable number of precedents for developments in the rear gardens of Addison Avenue, giving access

onto Carson Terrace and Queensdale Walk. For future applications,guidelines are required: - Rear garden developments should not exceed single storey, and roof height at the eaves should not be higher than the

existing party wall with neighbours on either side - The highest part of the roof of any such development should not be higher than the eaves by more than 50% of the

height of the party wall on the neighbours’ side, allowing for a maximum roof slope of 40 degrees on either side - Particular attention should be paid to the detailed design of any addition: the design should be in sympathy with original

architectural features of the main house - Materials to be used should be similar in appearance to those of the main house: external materials and finishes should

be in character with the original building How to ensure that all architectural detailing is painted white to ensure unity of design? Article 4.1 to control colour of stucco detailing of all houses in the road? Summary of Article 4 directions: Existing and Required




39-57: 4.2√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00- AppD)

Include 1-9, 2A-16, 18 - 28, 15 - 27, 29 - 37, 32 - 38 & Cranley Lodge

Include: 1-9, 11 and 11 A-D, Cranley Lodge, 15 - 27, 29 – 37 (15,25,27 cornices missing: reinstatement unlikely?) 2A-16, 18 - 28, 32 – 42, 44 and 48 (there is no 46), 54 – 60

Preventing rendering and painting of

39 – 57: 4.2√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00

Include 29 – 37 Include 1-9 (All but 7 already stuccoed and painted) and 11a-

brickwork –App E) d

Include 54 – 60 (but 56 already painted blue, though not rendered)

Exterior painting:

None Include 2A – 16 and 18 – 28 to achieve greater uniformity with Norland Square

11a-d 39 – 57 (odd) – how important?

Preventing use of front gardens for car parking/ inappropriate alterations to front garden enclosures (a) Hardstandings:

None None Include 54 - 60

(b) Enclosures: None Include 54 – 60 (Norland ART4 22.03.00 – App H)

Ugly wooden picket fences at 54 and 56 should be replaced with railings at earliest opportunity.

None

QUEENSDALE WALK Queensdale Walk has two storey dwellings on the east side facing a garden wall over which hangs a mature catalpa and other garden trees. The houses, many of which show signs of having had stables and sheds/garages on the ground floor, have now mostly got rid of ugly pipes on their facade and differ in detail in a charming and informal way. Part of the terrace (Nos 1-4) is to a well considered gothic revival design, with their hood mouldings over the windows restored, (as suggested in the 1982 CAPS). Most of the houses have now achieved a pleasing unity in decoration - either white, grey or cream, the exception being 5 Taverner’s Close, closing the end of the street. Nos 1-4 Queensdale Walk are covered by Art 4 directions. Though the other houses are not particularly distinguished, they will now also be protected by Art 4 Directions to ensure no inappropriate façade treatments (including paint colour). 1 - 4

Nos 1-4 are to a well considered gothic revival design, with their hood mouldings over the windows restored. These numbers have Art 4 directions for architectural details. All have uniform doors and fenestration; 1st floor fenestration uniform except mullion windows at 1. Stucco facades painted respectively cream/yellow,grey,white and cream.

5 - 12

• Most of the subsequent houses have been “bijoued up” in different ways: Door and window details vary: some more appropriate than others, none of which entirely successful: No 5 door? Windows Nos 8 and 10A?

• Façades of Nos 6, 7, 10 messed up by exterior soil-stacks and other plumbing

• 5, cream stucco, “B&Q”-type door • 6, grey painted brick, with soil stack in middle of façade • 7, white painted brick with “eyebrow” (small half-round) window

in between ground and first floor, and drain pipe to right • 8, stucco ground floor, painted brick first floor, painted cream;

functional windows • 9, cream brick • 10 white brick, mullion windows • 10 A, cream brick, builders’merchant-style windows • 11, half white brick (boarded up, being rebuilt) • 12 partially concealed in alleyway, white brick

13

13? (end of QW) or is it 5 Taverners Close?: grey; plastic garage doors and windows.

20

On west side of the Walk is No 20, a new house built in similar style to 1-4, in the garden of 13 Queensdale Road

Soft spots/threats: Though the only houses in Q Walk which clearly need Art 4 protection are 1 – 4 (already covered), with the extent of permitted development allowed in CA’s under new Planning legislation, one would not like to see any new façade treatments/details which are not in keeping with the original Mews character. No 11 was a closely fought battle against totally inappropriate glass bricks. Art 4 direction is required covering Architectural details to ensure control of alterations, and inappropriate paint colours. Summary of Article 4 directions: Existing and Required




1 – 4 (4.2√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00 – App D)

None

5 – 12, + 20 and 5 Taverners Close : Need to ensure that any new façade treatments/details are in keeping with the original Mews character


None None None

Exterior painting:

None

Support existing colour unity

In fact colours vary: cream, grey, white. Garish colours would be quite wrong, therefore need for guidance without specifying colour uniformity. How can this be achieved?

QUEENSDALE PLACE On its west side, Queensdale Place has a plain two storey terrace of chaste early Victorian quality, with rendered window reveals and a simple cornice, retaining some Georgian atmosphere. This terrace has been partially reconstructed and extended at the north end, and made into flats. At the end is an inoffensive small office building in keeping with the feel of the west terrace. The East side comprises some original cottages with gardens in front (some unfortunately converted to hardstandings), and a number of rebuilds to afford entrances to No 18 and Waterden Court behind. At present the terrace on the west side presents a pleasing, if simple, unity. It would be a pity if a new owner were to destroy this by altering any of the façade details, or deciding to paint the whole front. The same applies to the East side, though this is already quite a muddle of designs. Art 4 Directions are now intended to cover façade details and painting, and hardstandings and enclosures (where appropriate), and will help to ensure the character of the street. West side: 1, out of sight behind garden of 3.

3-19

Houses on west side mostly retain original cottagey feel (3 -19). Most have 2nd floor dormers; 9 and 11 have arched doors, different from the rest;

13

13 has later added triangular pediment , all wrong

21-25

More recent construction

27

Also 27 at end of QP, (offices of D.C.Co UK)

Any further alterations should be in keeping with original and governed by general homogeneity of this side of QP. East side: 8-14

Most houses on East side have been messed up, - partly to allow access to newly built 18 (behind 16), and Waterden Court, behind 6. 8, 10, 12 and 14 retain original cottagey features, but brick façades of 10, 12, and 14 have been painted white, dormers added to all three, and hard-standings (cobbled at 14, brick-tiled at 10) added; front garden remains at 12, surrounded by brick wall surmounted by white picket fence; front garden remains at 8, with brick wall and railings

16

16 seems recent construction, (presumably to allow for access to 18, behind)

6

Number 6 seems to have been completely re-built to allow access to Waterden Court, with inappropriate windows, door and tiled steps to front door. (Waterden Court , wrought iron gates; mews houses in court behind).

4a

Number 4A has ground floor in stucco greenish yellow, with completely wrong modern glass and metal sliding door

2

Number 2 has been modernised reasonably sympathetically, but the conservatory at the side, behind rather portentous white stone(?) balustrade, is quite out of keeping. Ground floor stucco white.

Note: the heterogeneous facades of the east side are well established and not displeasing, but any development

on this side of the street should also be in keeping with the original cottagey style of the street (eg no more modern doors, plate glass windows etc)

Soft spots/threats: - 3-19 Architectural details of façades, possibility of rendering and painting - 2-16 Architectural details of façades, possibility of rendering and painting - front gardens at 4 & 12 Summary of Article 4 directions: Existing and Required




None None 3 – 19 21 – 27? 2 - 16


None None 3 – 19

2 - 8 (10 – 14 already painted)

Exterior painting: None None None

Preventing use of front gardens for car parking

(a) Hardstandings

None

None

4 &12? (10 and 14 already have hardstandings)

(b) Enclosures None None 2, 4, 6, 8 &12? (Existing enclosures not perfect)

Notes: In general there is nothing objectionable about street furniture and lighting in QR,QP and QW except at the junction with Addison Avenue, where the street lights on the keep left reservations are extremely ugly and should be changed. In Q Walk, some residents have complained about dustbins being left on the pavement opposite the houses. Enforcement has been feeble or non-existent.

Royal Crescent Norland Conservation Society for CAPS Vision for the future 10 – 20 years in context of Local Development Framework Summary Development:

• Royal Crescent (RC) was built in 1840 • Achieved grade II* listing in 1969 • Only entire street / garden to have that listing • Historically and architecturally W11’s most important garden square • RC not designed to cope with traffic either practically or functionally • Two deaths and two serious injuries in the past 9 months, - one third of total average yearly number of

traffic accident fatalities across the whole borough: one of its worst blackspots • Heavy vehicle traffic could/will destroy all efforts for Conservation in RC and St AV, unless action taken • Single glazing (due to listing) poor at reducing noise and particulate pollution • Traffic reduces desirability and therefore value of properties, reducing scope for inward investment to

preserve historical and architectural importance

Movement:

• Planning / traffic management in 1970’s changed RC to ‘main road’ despite listing • RC flanked by more suitable thoroughfares on East (Ladbroke Grove B450) and West (Wood Lane A219

and West Cross Route (A3220) • Nothing done since CAPS report (including Freston Road enquiry) in 1980 • Traffic calming measures have done little to reduce traffic, even if they have marginally slowed its speed • Congestion Charging has slightly reduced small vehicle traffic – but is to be rescinded • Problems associated with traffic include:

o Road Safety: RC is an accident black spot with an appalling road safety record (one third of average annual death toll in whole borough)

o Vibration and reverberation: proven to damage buildings o Noise pollution: health risk due to disturbance exacerbated by single glazing o Air Pollution: particulate pollution (especially diesel) causes severe health and environmental damage;

again exasperated by single glazing o Reduced privacy: mainly due to height of double-decker buses o Reduced desirability: reducing value of property

• Buses and HGVs are main culprits due to sheer size and scale of noise and air pollution • Buses much worse that HGVs due to frequency and 24 hour presence

Buses:

• Two TfL bus routes run though RC: 295 (24 hour & double-decker) and 316 • Many private coaches use RC as a roundabout including the frequent Oxford Tube • Massive excess capacity: 8 to 10 TfL buses per hour each capable of carrying 75 passengers – most carry

6 – 15 passengers, many are empty – frequency and capacity of buses should be optimised • Excess capacity proof of low demand in area for bus transport due to poor routing or other transport

options • Area has huge rail transport capacity: underground (Holland Park, Latimer Road and Shepherds Bush) and

overground (Shepherds Bush) • The aim to increase North / South transport in borough, set out in the LDF conflicts with the aim to preserve

the legacy of Listed Buildings and fine Conservation Areas • Better route could run across North Kensington and through Hammersmith & Fulham giving direct access

to the Westfield retail centre Requirements:

1. Environmental Impact Assessment of bus routes and HGV traffic 2. Bus Capacity Assessment to determine if fewer and smaller buses would impact service 3. Revisit the CAPS document (including Freston Road enquiry) to investigate traffic re-routing

HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT - Royal Crescent is Grade II* listed Royal Crescent, originally intended to be named Norland Crescent, was laid out in the 1840s by Robert Cantwell as the jewel in the crown of the Norland Estate development. It is therefore today integral to the heritage environment and appeal of W11. The principal undertaker on the Uxbridge road frontage, and indeed on the whole estate, was Charles Stewart, a wealthy barrister who had served as Member of Parliament for Penryn. Between 1840 and 1846 he took building leases from Richardson for some 150 houses on the estate, as well as for a number of coach-houses and stables. His principal ventures were in Royal Crescent (where he had 43 houses) and St. Ann's Villas (34), but he also involved himself in Holland Park Avenue, Queensdale Road, Norland Square and Norland Road, in the last of which the Stewart Arms public house (now rebuilt) still commemorates his name. The Norland Estate is special not only for its graceful and distinctively varied architecture, but because these are streets of handsome buildings, each individually intended to give a sizable family everything it may want to thrive, yet placed in a context which builds communities. Here are quiet, tree-lined, human-scaled roads in which neighbours, old people, children, teenagers may meet and chat; here are houses which look towards a community hub and an enriching shared social space, whether it be a church or magnificent communal garden, and it’s often both. For 150 years this area has provided not just a place of great beauty in West London but its layout and forms have also encouraged the happy interplay of people’s lives. (Given the integral communal gardens, these human generations flourish alongside a background of generations of wildlife too: the resident woodpeckers, thrushes, hedgehogs, foxes and so on.) That is its neighbourhood. Royal Crescent itself is an iconic sweeping statement of elegant stucco buildings, complete with circular turrets at the corners, in a style that manages intriguingly to graft early Victorian flair and ambition onto a well-proportioned foundation of Regency restraint, yet without the “grand[ness] of Nash’s Park Crescent or the delicacy of detail of Basevi’s Pelham Crescent”.

Royal Crescent may be seen as part of the vogue for circuses and curved layouts in general, which had been current throughout much of the previous century and which gained favour subsequent to the Napoleonic Wars.

It consists of tall narrow stucco-faced four-storey houses with basements and attics, with two rooms to each floor. The porches are of the Roman Doric order, and are surmounted by cast-iron balustrades which link with those on the balconies at first-floor level. The ground- floor windows are widely proportioned, and the first- and second-floor windows have moulded architraves. There is a dentilled main cornice above the second floor, above which is a crowning storey with a smaller, less elaborate cornice and balustrade. The houses at each end of the two ranges in the crescent have circular pavilions, somewhat reminiscent of those at the corner of Adelaide Street and Strand, and of those in Victoria Square, Westminster. They are capped by balustrades behind which rise high circular attic lanterns crowned by modillioned cornices. The internal planning is in no way remarkable, being the standard London form, two rooms to a floor. In the last 25 years or so, the fortunes of the crescent have steadily been rising – thanks in part to its Listed status achieved in 1969. In consultation with English Heritage and RBKC’s Conservation Department, more buildings than ever before have had their tatty bed-sits removed and been returned to splendidly-renovated single-dwellings with their rooms once again back where they were designed to be. Efforts by the residents themselves have ensured that the buildings – whether flats or whole houses – are now better loved and maintained than at probably any time since the 1920s or earlier. There is still a way to go, (see photos of houses in Royal Crescent in appendix). But, for the first time in a very long time, the trend is positive, and just about every house is now painted again in the regulation Portland-stone coloured paint, so the continuity of the visual sweep of the crescent is back. Thanks to sustained efforts by the Garden Committee in conjunction with RBKC, the communal garden here has never looked more cherished: real effort goes into its luscious planting schemes. It finally has its smart ‘Victorian’ railings back; and it boasts a new gazebo to punctuate the original layout of beds and paths. After 150 years, the garden is probably only now finally approaching the mature, tree-filled, elegant, social oasis of which its original architect dreamt. Thankfully, the crescent’s listed status now means that English Heritage and the RBKC can ensure architectural damage is not done in the name of ‘development’, and that inward investment can instead be channelled into greater conservation. In tough times, as not too distant post-WWII history has shown, the crescent’s heritage is damaged, sometimes horribly: at that time, when the crescent could not sustain itself as an elegant street of single-family houses, the houses were viciously sliced up with no care at all for them as part of a unique, historic entity. This led to a decline that almost ended in the crescent’s wholesale demolition and replacement. THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM The last 25 years’ positive developments in the restoration and maintenance of Royal Crescent’s buildings and gardens have unfortunately, increasingly been countered by its worsening problem with traffic and the associated problems of noise and particulate pollution. It is architecturally the grandest of all of Notting Hill and Holland Park’s garden squares, yet the crescent now suffers from two high-frequency north-south bus routes, acts as an important north-south route for HGV’s and other traffic, and is used by the Oxford Tube as a turn-round roundabout. Over the past 28 years traffic volumes have increased. The LDF states the aim of improving north-south public transport. If the environment of the Crescent is damaged further by increased traffic, not only will its sense of

community suffer, and ultimately disappear. The economic value of its houses and flats and the fabric of the buildings will suffer considerably across the board as a direct result. With the crescent’s gardens cut off from its houses, the crescent will no longer attract families, and will be greatly altered. It’s hard to say under these massive pressures what the crescent’s future would be or whether it would have one at all. Residents will always bear the greatest responsibility for up-keep and enhancement. But, sadly, history has shown that whether residents take care of the buildings or not depends largely on the general quality of living in the crescent. It then becomes increasingly difficult for outside organisations to resist the resulting general tide of increasing disrepair and derelictions in these maintenance-heavy buildings.1

Talking to residents, it’s clear that the volume of heavy traffic has made every flat and house in Royal Crescent (and St Ann’s Villas), without exception, a less desirable and hence less valuable place to live. In addition to noise and dirt, the effect of the loss of privacy has made some ground-floor flats take up to six times longer to sell than comparable properties; when they do sell they achieve almost 20% less value. There is no doubt, that anyone here, having experienced the effect of one 24 hour bus route, and now putting up with two, who can move out, will. A vital and essential element of Conservation policy in Royal Crescent and St Ann’s Villas, a viable solution to this traffic problem has to be found urgently. Otherwise it will return to the bad old days of rented bed-sit squalor. Original maps of the Norland Estate show that St Ann’s Road, known as St Ann’s Villas at its bisection with the crescent, was (like the Estate’s other access roads) only ever designed to provide access to the Norland Estate itself. 2

As such, it did not extend much beyond what is now Queensdale Road. The crescent was therefore intended, and indeed did function, possibly for the best part of its first century, as a proper residential garden entity. It was deliberately protected from through-traffic (obviously considered damaging even at 1840’s Victorian horse-drawn proportions) by the provision of Norland Road running in a curve along and behind its western half, connecting, at its west end, what is now Holland Park Avenue west of Royal Crescent, to Latimer Road further north, and providing the north-south access towards what is now North Kensington.

This situation was compromised by the regrettable twentieth-century planning/ traffic management decision to turn Latimer Road into the straighter ‘St Ann’s Road’. With the pedestrianisation of Norland Road and the closure of its access onto the new roundabout at the junction of Holland Park Avenue with Holland Road and the West Cross Route, traffic leading north was no longer led away from the residential crescent but right through its heart, so unleashing the predations of heavy through-traffic and its associated ills on the crescent’s magnificent residential elegance, in an era when cars and ever-increasing levels of traffic everywhere were thought of positively as ‘the future’: Royal Crescent and St Ann’s Villas became a main north-south route., designated as a “district main road” or “local distributor road”. The decision was made in spite of this area being well-served with far bigger, more suitable, north-south routes. In fact the St Ann’s Road/ Royal Crescent route is literally sandwiched between them: parallel on its western side are both the substantial Wood Lane (A219) and the massive north-south artery of the West Cross Route (A3220); on its eastern is the other long, straight, wide through-route of Ladbroke Grove (B450). The reason for this change seems to have been the desire to change Norland Road (with its comparatively more modest, utilitarian architecture) into a pedestrian zone. Sacrificing W11’s rarest Crescent, and a historic landmark, for this, seems, with today’s perspective, and in the light of what has happened to Royal Crescent, to be a great indictment of Britain’s past appreciation of its heritage, and its lack of understanding and appreciation of the urban design ingredients that actually encourage communities. Given this treatment, it was no wonder that the crescent took years to shake off its bed-sit squalor. Royal Crescent is unique in North Kensington, as being listed Grade II* in entirety. It is also unique in the extent to which it suffers from Heavy traffic. Other Notting Hill streets and garden squares (only partially Listed, and therefore considered of lesser architectural or historical consequence than Royal Crescent), have escaped such ill-treatment.

1 Cf. RBKC’s UDP, Chapter 4, 4.5.12: “[t]he Council considers that the[…] preservation, protection and correct maintenance [of Listed buildings] is of great importance”, and CD65: “[t]o resist the demolition of listed buildings in whole or in part, or the removal or modification of features of architectural importance (both internal and external)”. 2 See Portion of Map by J. Wyld, 1850; Portion of School Board Map, 1880-1884 [both following p. 180]; and Intended Layout (1841) for the Norland Estate; and Sale Plan of the Norland Estate (1848) and Daw’s Map of Kensington 1852 [all three following p. 244] in Notting Hill in Bygone Days by Florence Gladstone and Ashley Barker (1969)

It is worth noting that this traffic problem was highlighted and covered at some length in the Norland CAPS of 1982, following the inspector’s findings at the District Plan Public Enquiry of Hammersmith & Fulham in June 1980. The Inspector recommended a comprehensive re-examination of the proposal for a link road to the M41, to include a cost benefit analysis of the environmental and conservation aspects involved and the future status of the M41. The recommended actions were not pursued. The Inspector’s summary highlighted that: - “The major traffic route link between Royal Crescent / St. Anns Villas and Holland Park Avenue creates some

major problems. The solution to those problems requires striking a careful balance between cutting the conservation area off from its neighbouring areas and restricting unwanted through traffic

- “There appears to be no disagreement that the Bramley Road, St. Ann's Road, Royal Crescent north/south route already carried a considerable volume of traffic and is, by normal standards, well above the environmental capacity of these roads.

- “The submitted evidence indicates that these conditions have an adverse effect on the residential amenities of adjoining housing; on the structural stability of buildings in Royal Crescent and on the free movement of pedestrians, particularly school children, living within the area.

- “the generation of additional traffic, particularly large vehicles, will exacerbate these existing unsatisfactory traffic conditions.

- “The objectors see the remedy to the problem being a link road to the M41, a proposal which has already been considered by the GLC as the responsible highway authority. The possibility of such a link does not appear to have been entirely discounted by that authority but a final decision on it is at present held in abeyance.

- "1 am not satisfied from the evidence that the benefits of a link to the surrounding development have been considered in sufficient detail or that proper regard has been paid to the existing unsatisfactory traffic conditions. These are matters of fundamental significance ….. the answer can only be provided by a cost benefit analysis which takes into account not only the traffic likely to be generated by the Plan proposals but, equally importantly, the existing volumes of traffic and the environmental and conservation benefits that removal of some of that traffic would achieve.”

Nothing has been done in the past 30 years to solve this problem. It has only got worse. BUSES – ROUTE 295 (NOW 24HRS) AND THE 316 ROUTE The crescent’s inappropriate “main road” designation not only meant that then-current levels of traffic in Royal Crescent went unaddressed. More than that, it allowed the addition of further traffic of the heaviest, most detrimental sort, in the form of two bus routes.3 The decision to add buses should never have been made – the traffic through the crescent was already heavy enough before this to form stationary jams,4

but the buses came as an immense additional visual and auditory assault. They damaged the atmosphere and character of this garden crescent immeasurably and, by further dangerously contributing to the traffic that separates the buildings from their communal garden, also continue to risk the heart and sustainability of Royal Crescent as a community space. Just recently a long-standing member of the Royal Crescent Garden Committee was killed by a vehicle while doing what the crescent was actually designed to encourage her to do freely and safely – cross the road between the garden and her house.

Royal Crescent – an appropriate route for even the existing 295 bus? The case for continuing the 24-hour existing 295 bus route through Royal Crescent appears slim. The 24 hour stream of these double-deckers - one in each direction every 8 mins (peak) and every 12 mins (off peak) - contributes significantly to overall traffic volume, noise and pollution in the Crescent. This frequency, and the large size of the buses, turns a street not designed or safe for through-traffic at all into a dangerous place for other road users - especially those who live there, pedestrians and cyclists - as the crescent’s dire accident statistics show. Perhaps, if the 295 was performing a vital service here and there was absolutely no alternative, safer route, this situation might be viewed as regrettable but sadly unavoidable. Actually, from necessarily thorough, (though anecdotal) round-the-clock observations, the 295’s double-deckers each with a capacity for 75 people frequently go

3 This is the “incremental change” to transport provision in an historic place that English Heritage notes as being of concern, English Heritage’s Transport and the Historic Environment, Point 6. 4 “Queues of traffic affect quality of life; they detract from historic areas and buildings, communities are severed […]”, ibid, Point 5.

through the crescent as a group of three with, at a generous estimate, 6-15 passengers between them. The great majority pass almost completely empty. Perhaps for only twenty minutes per week (Friday evening rush-hour) are they even anything approaching full as they pass through the Crescent. Even when a busy bus does appear it is invariably immediately followed by two completely empty ones.

Likewise, few passengers use the bus-stops on St Ann’s Villas. So the need for a bus route here has to be questioned, especially when there are alternative, less sensitive, and doubtless safer routes nearby, like Wood Lane, where the 295’s capacity might be better used. It has also to be questioned why 295 buses were quickly increased to double-decker. The fact that its buses are so empty calls for a thorough Origin and Destination survey of users throughout the 24 hours, throughout the week, at different times of the year. The need for a service that has such detrimental effects on a Grade II* Crescent has to be justified. It has to be proven that the objective of increasing public transport availability for poorly-served areas of London is best served by passing through the fragile heritage environment of Royal Crescent, by-passing an area of downright poor availability (at least according to PTAL assessments) to the north-west of the crescent, in North Kensington. An alternative route could follow the existing routes 7 and 70, leading through North Kensington to Wood Lane, and also give direct access to the new Westfield retail centre. As well as giving more public transport to people currently assessed as actually lacking it, such a route would have the additional advantage of being more direct, quicker and using an existing main road which is actually designed to handle bus traffic. Royal Crescent – suitable for a second bus route? But the case for a second bus route here (the extended 316), in addition to the 295, is even slimmer. We understand the Westfield retail development is forecast to create a large demand for public transport, but huge amounts of extra rail and underground capacity have already been created, including the vast new Wood Lane underground station, designed to accommodate passenger congestion of “football crowd” proportions.

Latimer Road and Holland Park tube stations are both close to Royal Crescent and already provide direct access to Shepherd’s Bush this distance takes only about 10 minutes on foot. Even if there is the need (which is debatable) for extra bus capacity here on top of the 295, ways and means of providing it and at the same time, protecting unique heritage like Royal Crescent, have to be found. The case for the new 316 route was never made clear. The fact that its buses are so empty calls for a thorough Origin and Destination survey of users throughout the 24 hours, throughout the week, at different times of the year. Traffic Pollution in Royal Crescent While it is desirable to reduce all road traffic generally, in tight residential streets like Royal Crescent where the houses (with necessarily single-glazed windows) abut the road directly, and especially as here where walking beside the road and/ or crossing it is integral to the intended design and use of this residential environment, modern low-emissions car traffic is quieter, less polluting, and easier to negotiate as a pedestrian and hence FAR less damaging to the lives, health and well-being of residents than buses. If RBKC are really serious about ‘green’ issues, and residents’ health and welfare, they must take this on board and act accordingly, and NOT view surface diesel transport expansions as a panacea for global warming etc when its misguided introduction may add to, not lessen, environment and health damage. 5 Government health advice specifically advises against the long-term exposure to diesel fumes (short-term exposure causing respiratory, eye and other problems, but long-term exposure “may increase the risk of lung cancer” [- other sources also show long-term exposure has a marked detrimental effect on the functioning of human blood vessels and is therefore associated with strokes, heart attacks and increased mortality6]) as opposed to safer petrol emissions, and suggests that “the presence of soot on […] walls or on other surfaces […] is a useful indicator that diesel fumes are not being adequately controlled”7

5 Cf. UDP, Chapter 7, 7.1.3.

– one basement area in Royal Crescent was found in places to have a deposit of particulate matter up to 10mm thick; deposits on the exteriors of the buildings are obvious everywhere along the street, but a significant proportion of these deposits come inside too - the walls inside Royal Crescent’s homes around ventilation grills show black streaks; thick black dust, quite unlike normal household dust, also forms on curtains and windowsills.

6 e.g. Håkan Törnqvist, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Lung Medicine, Umeå University, “Respiratory and Cardiovascular Responses to Diesel Exhaust Exposure”. 7 Health & Safety Executive, “Diesel Engine Exhaust Emissions”.

If such poisonous particulate matter comes inside, we are breathing it in, absorbing it, eating it – along with the additional environmental toxins to which it is known to cling. Such a situation exposes residents in older buildings with leaky original doors and windows to more health-threatening consequences than residents of new and especially purpose-designed buildings. But again the situation, as with the effects of noise pollution, is still worse for residents of listed buildings than any other type – they are not only exposed to a greater amount of such pollution, but also barred from implementing the corresponding health-protective measures (like modern, better sealing doors and windows). Again we think that all parties across the UK considering especially the expansion of pollution-creating transport or other schemes in such areas should view this as a potential (but completely avoidable) area of legal liability. It’s yet another reason to question the suitability of streets like Royal Crescent to be carrying any bus route, never mind two. Particulate filters on buses and other diesel vehicles offer one mitigation of their polluting emissions, but these are not a total cure (they do not remove all DPM and likely not the tiniest and therefore most deadly particles. Can the LDF Strategic Objectives be achieved in Royal Crescent and St Ann’s Villas? The Core Strategy places great emphasis on improving north-south transport links: Strategic Objective Three: Better travel choices is to be achieved by, amongst other things, improving bus services linking the north and south of the Borough (para 3.4.11) Equally, it emphasises the importance of protecting the high quality historic environment, and specifically Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas, in order to “pass on the legacy”: Strategic Objective Five: Renewing the Legacy (para 3.3.13 and CO 1.5) is assumed to have been achieved in para 3.4.14: “we will have renewed the legacy: • the quality of our built heritage will continue to be central to the image of the Borough • property owners will be accustomed to undertaking restoration and enhancement works as part of

development proposals” and in para 3.4.18: “we will have renewed the legacy - our historic townscapes will have been cherished and will appear much as they do today - our listed buildings will have been preserved.” It does not say how.

The Strategic Objectives set out in the LDF Section 3.3, and the results of the Vision set out in Section 3.4, contain a potential conflict which is not addressed, let alone resolved. The Core Strategy nowhere indicates how the objectives of improving north-south transport links, and at the same time, protecting and enhancing Conservation Areas and Listed Buildings can be achieved in the case of Royal Crescent and St Ann’s Villas. Given the small number of possible north-south routes, and the main focus of the Core Strategy on regeneration of North Kensington, there seems every possibility that the importance of protecting and enhancing the high-quality historic environment in RC and St AV will go by default – as it has since the last CAPS was published in 1982. Clearly a key part of the CAPS Vision for Norland, and specifically for Royal Crescent and St Ann’s Villas, will be to reduce the volume of this traffic to “liveable” proportions, so that these Grade II* and Grade II buildings remain desirable places to live in, preserve and enhance. (One of the results aimed for under Renewing the Legacy is that “ property owners will be accustomed to undertaking restoration and enhancement works as part of development proposals”. This will not happen if people no longer want to live there.) In summary, in Royal Crescent and St Ann’s Villas, it is difficult to see how the legacy objective can be achieved / delivered at the same time as improving north-south public transport (unless some way is found to reduce the volumes using these roads. The HGV/buses problem is already unbearable. In relation to Royal Crescent and St Ann’s Villas, the Legacy will not be renewed if the Buses/HGV problem is not addressed and resolved. How the conflict is to be resolved, and both objectives achieved, is not addressed in the Core Strategy document. The Core Strategy therefore fails the 'effectiveness' soundness test, and needs to be revised to resolve this problem.

CONCLUSION We would like to let you know that we represent a large and growing number of very concerned residents, who would all appreciate a careful, rigorous approach from you, RBKC, to the various traffic-related points we raised above in opposition to the current bus routes and HGV traffic. Royal Crescent residents are not only aware that their street is a major accident black spot, accounting for one third of the total average yearly road deaths in Kensington & Chelsea (at a time when RBKC is not meeting its road casualty reduction targets), but many also knew and loved the two people recently killed as a result of the crescent’s existing heavy traffic. Many likewise have small children and are understandably upset about the danger the crescent road poses which is further exasperated with the implementation of the new 316 route. It’s clear from our experience of the crescent and that of many long-standing residents, that there is a fundamental contradiction in the crescent’s function and that this is causing the traffic danger to its residents and other pedestrians. Since RBKC re-routed through-traffic right down the centre of the crescent in (we believe) the 1970s, it has designated Royal Crescent’s road expediently as a main road – a stance which now results in the proposal to have it carry not one but two bus routes, the Oxford Tube in addition to the already heavy traffic, much of it HGV. RBKC forgets that Royal Crescent is a garden square, consisting of houses, access road and communal gardens, all together in a residential entity. While RBKC is turning that access road into a major surface transport artery, owing to the layout and design of their garden square, Royal Crescent’s residents must continue to cross and re-cross that access road often many times daily in order to reach their communal gardens, and from there return to their homes. This creates the extreme traffic danger now existing. Royal Crescent is architecturally and historically the most important of all W11’s garden squares, as is shown by it being the only entire street/ garden square to carry a Grade II* Listing, yet it is the only garden square afforded the appalling treatment whereby its communal gardens are completely surrounded on all sides by heavy through-traffic, now increased substantially yet again with the new bus route. This results in those gardens being cut off from the crescent’s homes and having a not dissimilar noise, and no doubt pollution, profile to the Shepherd’s Bush/ Holland Park Roundabout. As a result, we feel that you need to take drastic steps now to reduce the death toll on Royal Crescent’s roads. We hope you will agree that given the scale of the problem, and the fact that this road already looks like a catalogue for different traffic calming devices, a minor additional bit of traffic calming – say a different type of hump – is NOT going to be an adequate solution. If people are dying here when the road is already narrowed in parts, has bollards, has humps, has raised squares and entire raised sections, we hope you will agree that the problem is the very existence of heavy through-traffic on a road not designed to take it, but designed instead for a great deal of pedestrian use, and take urgent steps to look into how you now remove this traffic. It may have been a long time ago but the council decision in the 1970s to make the crescent into a through-route was never a correct one and is now directly leading to loss of life, as every resident here knows. It must be overturned. We would ask you therefore immediately to commission traffic flow modelling to determine the best way of removing through-traffic from Royal Crescent entirely. This could be done in a number of ways not least by revisiting the FRESTON INQUIRY, and you may well be able to suggest a number more. This will simply reinstate to Royal Crescent the treatment every other W11 garden square takes for granted, and allow it to function properly once more as a garden square - without its residents risking being killed crossing to and from their garden. Please also be aware that due to the implementation of a second bus route (316), given Royal Crescent’s existing and substantial problems with noise and pollution – both of which are associated with severe health consequences – you need as a matter of priority to be undertaking an Environmental Impact Assessment. We would again also draw your attention to these buildings Grade II* Listed status which precludes residents implementing measures to protect their health from these effects: a serious situation and one of potential local authority liability. We welcome your constructive and considered suggestions as to how to turn around the dire traffic situation at Royal Crescent, and ensure by blocking it to through-traffic, that the lives of its residents are henceforth protected, and we look forward very much to working with you to achieve this. Edited from Movement summary: Original maps of the Norland Estate show that St Ann’s Road, known as St Ann’s Villas at its bisection with the crescent, was (like the Estate’s other access roads) only ever designed to provide access to the Norland Estate

itself. 8

As such, it did not extend much beyond what is now Queensdale Road, and the crescent therefore was intended and indeed did function possibly for the best part of its first century as a proper residential garden entity, deliberately protected from through-traffic (obviously considered damaging even at 1840’s Victorian horse-drawn proportions) by the provision of Norland Road running in a curve along and behind its western half and connecting the main road (now Holland Park Avenue at the junction with the Shepherd’s Bush Roundabout) with Latimer Road further north - the north-south access towards what is now North Kensington.

This status quo was compromised by the regrettable twentieth-century planning/ traffic management decision that turned Latimer Road into the straighter ‘St Ann’s Road’, no longer

leading traffic away from the residential crescent but right through its heart, so unleashing the predations of heavy through-traffic and its associated ills on the crescent’s magnificent residential elegance. This traffic management switch led to Royal Crescent providing another convenient north-south access, in an era when cars and ever increasing levels of traffic everywhere were thought of positively as ‘the future’. As such, in spite of its heritage status and the fact that it is a residential entity (with an integral shared garden) with a narrow road and junctions unsuitable for heavy traffic, the crescent has been designated as a “district main road” or “local distributor road”. The crescent’s inappropriate “main road” designation not only enabled the then current levels of traffic on the crescent to go unaddressed but, more than that, even allowed the addition of further traffic of the heaviest, most detrimental sort, in the form of a bus route. The decision to add buses should never have been made – the traffic through the crescent was already heavy enough before this to form stationary jams, but the buses came as an immense additional visual and auditory assault. They damaged the atmosphere and character of this garden crescent immeasurably and, by further dangerously contributing to the traffic that separates the buildings from their communal garden, also continue to risk the heart and sustainability of Royal Crescent as a community space. Just recently a long-standing member of our Garden Committee was killed by a vehicle while doing what the crescent was actually designed to encourage her to do freely and safely – cross the road between the garden and her house.

8 See Portion of Map by J. Wyld, 1850; Portion of School Board Map, 1880-1884 [both following p. 180]; and Intended Layout (1841) for the Norland Estate; and Sale Plan of the Norland Estate (1848) and Daw’s Map of Kensington 1852 [all three following p. 244] in Notting Hill in Bygone Days by Florence Gladstone and Ashley Barker (1969)

St. Ann’s Villas Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Rosemary Bauccio and Nonie Wolff (updated to 9/2/2010) St. Ann's Villas show the most pronounced individuality of architecture of the original development of the Norland Estate: being in the Gothic style, they are entirely in contrast with neighbouring streets.

Numbers 11-33 (west side) and 12-34 (east side), north of the junction with Queensdale Road were built between 1846 and 1859, in an experimental semi-detached Tudor-Gothic style.

The dark and ornamentally treated brickwork, with its diaper patterns of contrasting colours and emphasised gable features, the roofscape, and the ornamental chimneys, (even the garden walls), are all entirely at variance with their surroundings, - and apparently with consumer demand of the day, since they were slow to sell and represent only a part of the number originally projected. Their plan form is more complex than most others on the Estate, as befits their Gothic ancestry. The Gothic-style houses (11-34) are Listed Grade II.

Discordant notes are struck by a wide variety of walls and railings round the listed buildings. When the opportunity arises, steps should be taken to encourage reinstatement of the original walls.

No. 19, when refurbishing about 10 years ago, reproduced the original street wall - and this is probably the best example of what an improvement it made

• No 15 is currently wrapped in builder's mesh - we have yet to see what will be revealed when removed • Nos. 33 and 34 have both repointed the exterior walls which has added substantially to their asthetic appeal.

1-9 West and 2-10 East

Numbers 1-9 on the west side and 2-10 on the east were built by 1843, as an extension of Royal Crescent. Tenants for these houses proved hard to find, and they were not occupied until 1848.

Nos 1-9 and 2-10 are currently not listed. They form an elegant group that visually links the listed Grade II* buildings of Royal Crescent to the listed Grade II buildings of St Ann’s Villas.

They are covered by Art. 4 Direction with regard to • doors and windows, balconies and architectural details of façades • but not paint colour (though this seems to be adhered to). There is also a split between multi-occupancy and single family homes. Again for the most part the single dwellings appear to be slightly better maintained.

In the past, Nos 1 - 10 have not lent themselves to wildly unsuitable replacement windows which might be perceived as a threat. Covered by Art 4, therefore no real threat to window styles as long as protective measures are maintained.

For many years between three and nine estate agent’s boards have been permanently displayed on these buildings. Section 7 control of this activity cannot come soon enough.

For the most part, single family homes display a better level of upkeep and conservation than some of the multi-occupancy houses - though not in every case

Problems in St Ann’s Villas and Royal Crescent:

• St Ann’s Villas is the only street in our Conservation Area to have ugly modern sodium street lights. Light pollution is a real issue.

• There is a very ugly modern telephone kiosk in Royal Crescent (and another in Norland Square) • Buses are a real problem. Two 24 hour a day routes constantly trundle through these streets of listed buildings

causing noise, vibration and considerable air pollution. Mostly they are empty! Royal Crescent is never without a bus.

• In St Ann’s Villas and Royal Crescent, there are old and faded notices to Look Out, and warnings about times bins are to be put out strapped onto posts. This is visual clutter and should be removed. What role does the Council play in maintaining a good standard of necessary signage in conservation areas?

• The trees in St Ann’s Villas now have grown very bushy from the base because of how they have been pruned and it is difficult to walk past them on the pavement. This problem was addressed during August and these bushy bases were removed.

• Remains of a disused zebra crossing should be removed.

ST ANN’S ROAD

2-14 East and 16-28 East

These buildings are currently not included in the Norland Conservation Area, but should be as they are the same stock as the houses in Darnley Terrace. They are not listed, and not subject to any Art 4’s, but should be in relation to Architectural features, preventing rendering or painting of brickwork, and enclosures (with a view to preserving existing railings).





St Ann’s Villas 1-9, 2-10 4.2√ (Norland ART4/com.report 22.03.00)

St Ann’s Villas 11 – 34 – or is this covered by listing?

St Ann’s Road, 2-14, and 18-28


None St Ann’s Villas 11 – 34 – or is this covered by listing?

St Ann’s Road, 2-14, and 18-28

Preventing use of front gardens for car parking (a) Hardstandings

None None St Ann’s Villas 11 – 34 – or is this covered by listing?

(b) Enclosures None None St Ann’s Villas 11 – 34 – or is this covered by listing?

Exterior painting (B. where existing unity of colour should be supported)

None St Ann’s Villas 1-9 and 2-10: de facto, but should be covered by Art 4

St James’s Gardens and Darnley Terrace Norland Conservation Society for CAPS and Art 4 directions By Clive Wilson (updated to 9/2/2010) Historical and architectural notes culled from the Survey of London

With St James’s Church as the focal point of Addison Avenue, St James’s Gardens forms the heart of the Norland Conservation Area. A tablet inset in the front wall of 1-2 records that 'The first stone of this Square was laid 1st November 1847'. 1-24

Nos 1-24 and 42-54 present a stylistic unity, which was evidently the original intention for the whole square. These houses are all listed Grade II. Between 1847 and 1852 five ranges, containing a total of thirty-seven three-storey houses, were built in the square. These followed a coherent architectural scheme, the essence of which is the arrangement of the houses in linked pairs, the link taking the form of recessed bays of one or two storeys containing the entrances. The ground and basement storeys are faced with stucco, and the upper storeys are of stock brick. The first-floor windows have stucco architraves and cornices; there are crowning modillioned cornices surmounting each pair of houses. The doorways and ground-floor windows have semi-circular heads, with moulded archivolts. The frontages are, on average, some eight feet wider than those in the more conventional terraces formed in Norland Square or Royal Crescent. The planning of the interiors is consequently more spacious, and marks a departure from that of the average terrace house of the period. The rooms are well-lit and pleasantly proportioned, sometimes as many as four being provided on one floor. Excavations for the basements are only about five feet in depth.

Building began on the south side, where the erection of the present Nos. 1-8 St. James's Gardens was notified to the district surveyor in September 1847. The next houses to be notified were Nos. 9-13, at the western end, in March 1848, and then Nos. 14-24 (consec.), on the north side, in November of the following year. In December 1850 came the notification of Nos. 47-54 on the south side, and in February 1851 the eastern range, Nos. 42-46 (consec). At this point, with one terrace of the six projected still not commenced, development on the original lines ceased, and building on the still vacant land at the east end of the north side was not resumed until the mid 1860's. Almost all of the thirty-seven houses were occupied within two or three years of the commencement of building (not a very long period compared with other parts of the Norland estate), and inability to build the sixth and last terrace in the square may well have been caused by the financial difficulties of the entrepreneur, Charles Richardson. To meet his mounting financial difficulties, Richardson was obliged to sell the freehold of some twelve acres at the north end of the estate in 1844. This area lay to the north of the future St. James's Square (now Gardens), and was already leased as a brickfield. The tenant brickmaker, William Naylor Morrison, now purchased the freehold. In the same year Richardson presented the site for the church. Charles Richardson retained possession of the freehold of the rest of the square until October 1852, when he was obliged by his mortgagees to sell all thirty-seven houses together with the remaining vacant land on the north side and the sites of the future Nos. 55 and 56 on the south side. Morrison had been Richardson's tenant for the twelve northern acres, which (as previously mentioned) he had used as a brickfield, and when, as the freeholder, he started to build, the unalluring conditions created by his previous brick- making operations probably compelled him to cater for a socially less ambitious clientele than that provided for by Richardson on the southern portion of the estate. The plan for the northern extremity of the estate, (which Richardson sold to the brick-maker Morrison), submitted to the Commissioners of Sewers in December 1843 for the drainage of St. James's Square, shows that three streets were then intended to lead out of the north side of the square to the vacant land beyond. One was to be in the centre of the square, and the other two at the two north corners. Plans drawn up in c. 1847, evidently provided for the retention of the centre opening,

which was to be flanked on either side by a range of eleven houses. But the projected eastern range was (as we have already seen) not built, and when building on the north side of the square was resumed in 1864 under different auspices, the site of the central opening was built upon, despite a local resident's complaint that a right of way existed there. In fact, purchasers were categorically prohibited from making any roads to or from any of the adjoining lands without the written prior consent of Charles Richardson, who had evidently inserted a covenant to this effect into the original sale to Morrison; in particular they were not to permit any gate or way or opening on the east side, leading into that notorious place of ill fame called 'Notting Dale or the Potteries'. Morrison and his associates lined the long straight streets, now to be formed, with as many small terrace houses as they could cram in, and the range of houses on the north side of St. James's Gardens (and Darnley Terrace) provides to this day a social as well as a physical barrier between the two portions of the original estate. There was therefore no access from the main part of the Norland estate to Morrison's land except at the east and west extremities, by way of Princes (now Princedale) Road and St. Ann's Road. In fact, this north-eastern section of the square comprises three sections: 30-36:

• Three storeys, plus basement and dormers – many of them now in single occupation;

• Rusticated, painted stucco at basement and ground floors, London stocks at first and second. Angular bay windows to basement, ground and first floors, all stuccoed and painted. Steep steps up to the raised ground floor. Stuccoed and painted architraves to second-floor windows. A continuous cornice above the ground floor, with a continuous low cast-iron railing, forming a mini-balcony across the width of the house. At roof level, a pronounced cornice with double dentil mouldings.

25-29

36-41

Four storeys, plus basement – the overall effect being higher than 30-36, and mostly still divided into flats. 25-29 Rusticated, painted stucco at basement and ground floors, London stocks at first and second. Angular bay windows to basement, ground and first floors, all stuccoed and painted. Steep steps up to the raised ground floor. Stuccoed and painted architraves to second and third-floor windows. A continuous cornice above the ground floor, with a continuous low cast-iron railing, forming a mini-balcony, across the width of the house. At roof level, a flat, plain stucco cornice. 37-41 As 25-29, but the cornice at roof level much deeper, with a thin string course, supported by a small dentil moulding, this in turn supported by an egg-and-dart moulding.

Development of this section proved slow. The site was still remote and isolated, close only to the stink and disease of the Potteries. None of these are covered by an Art 4 direction. They should have 4.2 to prevent alterations to doors and windows, balconies and architectural details of façades, and to prevent rendering and painting of brickwork. Enclosures should be controlled by Art 4.1 directions.

St James’s Lodge

Stands at the west corner of Addison Avenue with St James’s Gardens, “twinned with” 57 Addison Avenue, set at an angle across the corner, - a pair of Tudor-Gothic style, stone-faced and painted houses, Listed Grade II.

55 & 56

On the eastern corner, for reasons which are unclear, the original scheme left a gap, which has been filled by Nos 55 and 56, an extremely ugly and over-bearing high block in dark London stocks, with minimal elevational interest (three storeys plus basement at 55 and 56, and an attic floor with dormers extending across most of the width at 55).

Darnley Terrace At the western end, on the north side of the square, Darnley Terrace leads into St Ann’s Road. Nos 1-6

A well-presented terrace of smaller houses, all listed Grade II, (with three storeys, plus basement, and an attic with dormers at Nos 1 and 2). The elevations are London stocks throughout. All the windows and doors have fine moulded stucco architraves, and cornices at ground and first floors. The attic dormers at Nos 1 and 2 are not distinguished and do not match. Original railings throughout.

Afterword With the exception of the northern land which now belonged to Morrison, and of the vacant lands on the north side of St. James's Gardens, and nearby in Penzance Street and Penzance Place, the development of the whole of the Norland estate had been completed by the early 1850's. Charles Richardson had been the prime mover in the complex and risky business of promoting the building within a mere dozen years of over five hundred houses on what was still a comparatively remote suburban estate. All his labours seem, however, to have ended only in personal ruin, for in 1854 a silence falls over his affairs until his reappearance in the autumn of 1855 at the rooms of the Glasgow Stock Exchange in the unexpected role of a bankrupt dealer in patent medicines. All his property, both real and personal, was transferred to his creditors by order of the Lord Ordinary of Scotland officiating in the Court of Session at Edinburgh, and in October a trustee of his estate was appointed. The Church of St. James, Norlands The Church of St. James, Norlands, occupies a commanding position at the northern end of Addison Avenue, where its tower marks the central north-south axis of the Norland estate. The site was presented by Charles Richardson, and the church, designed in ‘the Gothic style of the twelfth century’ by Lewis Vulliamy, was built in 1844-45 at a cost of £4,941. It was consecrated on 17 July 1845. A district parish was assigned in the following year. The church is built of white Suffolk bricks, with minimal stone cornices, hood moulds, pinnacles and stringcourses. It is orientated east-west, and the tower is positioned south of the central bay, where it projects as the centrepiece of a symmetrically composed south elevation. The entrance is through a cavernous porch of brick set in the base of the tower. A gable containing a trefoil panel extends upwards over the porch into a large light enriched with handsome tracery. The stark simplicity of the body of the church sets off the elegant three-stage tower, which was being 'raised' in 1850. The first stage has gabled buttresses with roll moulded edges,and contains the porch and large traceried window. The very short second stage has a clock-face set in on each side in a shallow circular recess flanked by blind lancet panels. The final belfry stage is lighter and richer, with two deeply-recessed paired lancets flanked by single blind lancet panels set within a panel framed by pilaster-buttresses. A drawing in Kensington Public Library shows that the tower was to have been surmounted by a stone broach spire. This was never built, and with its thin octagonal pinnacles set on each corner, the tower seems somewhat abrupt without it. The body of the church is broad and barn-like, and consists of a five-bay clerestoried nave with lean-to aisles. Galleries were added in 1850. They rested on supports which spanned from brackets on the cast-iron columns of the nave to the north and south walls, and must have given an appearance of solidity to the interior which has now been dissipated by their removal. The columns, quatrefoil on plan, are widely spaced, and support an elegant arcade above which is the clerestory, pierced by small single lancets, two to each bay. The aisles are lit by two ranges of paired lancets, above and below the former galleries. The roof is carried on simple wooden trusses of meagre design, supported on brackets. Each truss is placed over the top of an arch of the arcade, and the resulting division of each bay into two parts tends to confuse the architectural logic of the design. Vulliamy's original design provided polygonal apsidal projections at the east and west ends, but these were not built. In 1876 the east end was extended under the direction of the architect, R. J. Withers, to provide the present chancel and vestries and an organ chamber. The east wall of the chancel is a scholarly composition in the Early English style with three stepped lancets set in five stepped-lancet panels. In 1880 a faculty was given for the erection of a reredos, for the reseating of the north and south galleries, and for the opening out of an arch westwards from the organ chamber. The reredos is of wood with a finely carved Last Supper, and has polychromatic decoration. Subsequent to a faculty of 1894, the chancel floor was extended westwards, a dwarf screen wall and ironwork were erected, new stalls were provided, and the walls of the organ chamber were raised in what is now the Lady Chapel north of the chancel. In 1921 the organ was removed to its present position in the west gallery. Beneath this there is a robustly designed font in which green marble and glazed tiles figure prominently. Until 1948 the greater part of the interior was coloured, and the whole of the surfaces of columns and arcading up to the stringcourse was covered with printed patterns, with angel motifs in the spandrels. The ceiling surfaces of the nave and aisles were decorated with repeat patterns, that to the nave being an I.H.S. motif. On the wall spaces between each window of the north and south aisles were murals painted on canvas, but these were removed in 1950. The church is listed Grade II. West London Tabernacle, Penzance Place This building, which was in commercial use for many years, was originally erected in the 1860's by Mr. Varley, a Baptist businessman who began to preach in the neighbouring Potteries in about 1863. It was enlarged and "beautified' in 1871-2 to designs by Habershon and Pite. It is built of yellow stock bricks with stone dressings, the style being a free adaptation of Italian Renaissance. The south front is flanked by two towers, now partially demoltshed, which contained staircases to the galleries. The centre of this elevation was pierced by a large semi-circular-headed window with a hood moulding in the form of a pointed arch. Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, St. James's Gardens This synagogue was built by Bovis Limited in 1928 to designs by S. B. Pritlove, with M. N. Castello acting as consultant architect. It was consecrated on 9 December of that year. It is built of dark multi-coloured stock bricks, with stucco dressings. The style of the exterior is Byzantine. The interior is one large space approximately square on plan, with a gallery round three sides, and is in the late seventeenth-century manner. This interesting building, of considerable historic significance, should be listed. Threats/Soft spots:

25-41 St James’s Gardens is not listed, or subject to any Art 4 directions. These houses (built from 1864 onwards, with completely different design ideas to the earlier listed buildings) are no great beauties, but they fit in and do not offend.

Under the new permitted development rules, the front elevations of any of these houses could be altered, to the enormous detriment of the unity of their respective terraces, and thus of the square as a whole.

None of these are covered by an Art 4 direction. They should have 4.2 to prevent alterations to doors and windows, balconies and architectural details of façades, and to prevent rendering and painting of brickwork, and to ensure "correct" colour choice for the stucco decorative elements. Enclosures should be controlled by Art 4.1 directions.

Another “soft spot” is the Mosque at 21 Penzance Place. Though this is not actually in the Square, it provides an unobtrusive back-drop to the Square in this north-east corner. It is important that its existing character should be retained. Art 4.2 directions are required to protect architectural details and prevent rendering and painting. (This is covered under Penzance Place.)





None

None

25-41


None None 25-41

Exterior painting: Uniformity of colour

St James's Gardens 1-24(consec), 42-54(consec)

Whole square: control of paint colour on Stucco ecorative elements

Listing recommendations: Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue

norland street surveys€¦ · the southern half of the avenue was built between 1840 and 1843,...

Documents