Nos 1-6 Pond Square

XIX—NOS. 1 TO 6, POND SQUARE

Ground Landlord.

These houses were originally copyhold of the Manor of Cantlowes but have been enfranchised.

General Description and Date of Structure.

The houses numbered in Pond Square form a group to the west of the site of the Ponds, and the southernmost house is named Rock House from an occupant of the late 19th century. In a sketch of 1845 from the George Potter Collection, now in the British Museum (Plate 87b), it is named Harcourt House.

Its principal and entrance front is towards the south and it is remarkable for the two large bay windows which project from the first floor (Plate 90). These are both of canted form with three sash windows of equal size, one filling each face and have white aprons contrasting well with the brick background. Their boldness gives great character to the design, which is considerably helped by a delightful doorcase of Doric three-quarter columns, carrying sections of entablature with triglyphs and the sloping cornices of a pediment. Beneath the bays are two sash windows, one each side of the door (the western now hidden); between them one window and above them three in the second storey. A simple wood railing guards the area to the basement and returns upon the east front, which forms a plain rectangle, lighted on the ground floor by a shallow bay window and by single sashes on first and second floor.

The remainder of the row of houses which started from the south with Rock House (No. 6) constitute the picturesque group shown in the photograph on Plate 88a. Since then Nos. 1 and 2 have been partly reconstructed, but Nos. 3, 4 and 5 remain in their original form. The two latter have the broad-framed sashes of the first half of the 18th century; the walls are built of red bricks mixed with dark headers, and the roofs are tiled (see Plate 88b). The houses form a symmetrical pair with their doors, protected by simple hoods on brackets, at each end of the building. The rooms are lighted by one sash to each house on the ground floor, two on the first, and a double dormer in the roof. Recessed panels mark the centre of the pair on both floors, and projecting string courses occur above and below the first-floor windows. The flues are grouped in one stack at the rear and the front gardens are fenced with a simple iron railing and gate. The back elevation has been partly rebuilt and one early window remains.

Historical Notes.

The group of houses, Nos. 1 to 6, Pond Square, and No. 45, South Grove, stand on a piece of ground which appears to have been enclosed from Highgate Green in 1692, by Christopher Ryles. It was then described as "a parcel of the waste on Highgate Hill at the north and east of the Bowling Green, near the Pond, as now enclosed with a hedge." A cottage there is mentioned in 1739. Robert Morgan of Highgate, bricklayer, acquired the land in 1750 from the heirs of John Croute, tailor, to whom it had been conveyed in 1739 by Mary Johnson, widow, the daughter of Christopher Ryles. The site of No. 6, Rock House, emerges from a tangle of records in the year 1777, when Anne Morgan, daughter of Robert Morgan, sold to David Jones of Kentish Town (who owned the Mother Red Cap) " a parcel of land formerly waste on which a messuage hath lately been erected heretofore in the possession of — Wells." The house, then untenanted, was on ground where a stable had stood, formerly in the possession of Robert Morgan. The successive owners after the death of Mrs. Ann Jones, widow, were Mary Ann Durling, wife of John Durling, farmer, of Brentwood (under the will of David Jones), Mary Durling (only child of Mary Ann Durling), 1819–23, John Vaux, widower of Mary Ann Vaux (née Durling), 1823–9, John Lowden and his executors, 1829–41, John Matthias Clark, 1841–78, Mary Ann Clark (daughter of John Matthias Clark, who married Henry Munday Clark), 1878–9. Mrs. Clark died on 16th June, 1879, leaving seven sons, two under age.

For many years before 1820 the tenant of Rock House was Mrs. Deborah Ellison, daughter of Richard Shillingford, carpenter, wife and then widow of John Ellison, mariner, who lived at Pennington Street, St. George the Martyr, in 1787. The tenant before Mrs. Ellison was Elizabeth Brownsworth, and after 1820 Thomas Brocksopp. The tenant from whom the house was named appears to be recorded on a monument in Highgate Cemetery (fn. 25) to "Mary, wife of John Dennis Rock, of Highgate." She died 2nd June, 1846, in the 42nd year of her age. In a publication called Mons Sacer for July 1846, Vol. I, No. 1, we find recorded "Deaths,—18th June at Highgate, at the house of her son in law, Mr. J. D. Rock, Mary, relict of the late Mr. Frederick Roope of London."

The adjoining houses, Nos. 1–5, Pond Square, and No. 45, South Grove, occupy land that belonged to Richard Shillingford, carpenter, from 1760 to 1785. The house in which he lived was on the site of Nos. 2 and 3, while the yard and garden attached to his house formed the site on which were afterwards erected No. 1 and also No. 45, South Grove, adjoining the back of No. 2. He bequeathed to his eldest son, Richard, property in Holloway and to his younger son, John, the house in which he lived, which was occupied after his death in 1785 by his married daughter, Susanna, wife of Robert Colpus, bricklayer. The name of Colpus as occupier last appears in 1817, and his widow's in 1818. (fn. 42) The two houses adjoining Shillingford's own dwelling house, Nos. 4 and 5, went to his two daughters, Mrs. Susanna Colpus and Mrs. Deborah Ellison, the first-named becoming sole owner from 1787, when Mrs. Ellison surrendered hers to her sister. Their brother John Shillingford lived in No. 1 next door to Mrs. Colpus.