The Edwardes estate: Pembroke Square, Pembroke Gardens and Pembroke Road area

Pembroke Square Area

In 1823 an area of some seven and a half acres, approximately bounded in present-day terms by Earl's Walk on the north, Earl's Court Road on the east, Pembroke Road on the south and the gardens of the houses on the west side of Pembroke Villas and Pembroke Square on the west, was let for speculative building under an agreement signed by Lord Kensington on 23 May of that year. The undertakers were John Dowley of Howland Street, Fitzroy Square, and Robert Tuck of Westmoreland Street, St. Marylebone, for both of whom this was probably their first building speculation. Dowley was a salaried employee of the Westminster Commissioners of Sewers, by whom he had first been engaged in 1810 as clerk of works. He had been promoted to chief surveyor at a salary of £300 per annum in 1817, when he was specifically requested to devote the whole of his time ‘to the Service of the Commissioners’. (fn. 232) Tuck was a carpenter in regular employment, probably with a brewery in Pimlico. In 1824 they became the contractors for the building of the Kensington Canal (see page 322), and Tuck seems to have given up his former job. They also owned small plots of land in Chelsea, St. John's Wood and Peel Street, Kensington. (fn. 233)

A crude plan of Pembroke Square (a name evidently chosen because of Lord Kensington's Welsh connections) was submitted to the Westminster Commissioners of Sewers in May 1824. It was signed by Robert Tuck's father, Richard Tuck, a builder, and probably shows the layout as first intended with paired villas at the western end of the long, narrow ‘square’ instead of the terraced range which was eventually built there. (fn. 234) Otherwise the layout was substantially carried out as planned. No architect's name is associated with Pembroke Square, nor is there any record of payments to, or claims by, an architect in the surviving accounts of Dowley and Tuck between May 1823 and July 1826. It is therefore very probable that they provided their own designs for both the layout and for the houses in the north and south ranges, Dowley the surveyor being perhaps mainly responsible.

The formation of the roadways of the square and building on its north side seem to have begun in the latter part of 1823. (fn. 235) Apart from the laying of sewers, for which Richard Tuck and another member of the family, Edward Tuck, appear to have been responsible in 1824–5, (fn. 236) the work in the square was done entirely under the auspices of Dowley and Robert Tuck up to July 1826. There were, however, some fifty or so sub-contractors and builders' merchants with whom they ran up accounts in 1824–6, though some items may have been in connection with their contemporaneous contract for the formation of the Kensington Canal. The accounts record wages for the labourers who dug the foundations and laid out the roads and square enclosure, and bills from four brickmakers (Lord Kensington's being the largest) and three timber merchants, as well as from cement merchants, lime merchants, a lime-burner (in Dorking), an ironfounder, an ironmonger, a colourman, a fanlight-maker, and suppliers of drain-pipes, chimney-pots, laths, plaster, plasterers' hair, mahogany, and shrubs and ‘potato setts’ for the enclosure. Ten carters were employed, mainly to cart and wheel bricks and sand, but Dowley and Tuck also spent £84 on buying their own carthorses and £42 for two chaises and harness, these purchases being soon followed by bills for forage, corn, stable rent and the services of a farrier. When the first houses began to take shape another stream of accounts flowed in, from three bricklayers, eleven carpenters, three plasterers, a sawyer, a stonemason, a plumber, a glass-cutter, a glazier, a painter, a paper-hanger, a paper-stainer, a measurer (Cornelius Holland) and a scavenger, whose function was presumably to move the mountains of builders’ rubble which all this activity must have generated. (fn. 237)

Between May 1823 and June 1826 Dowley and Tuck paid out some £10,700 in respect of these costs (including a few items relating to the canal). (fn. 238) At first they raised the necessary funds by obtaining unsecured loans from Sarah Gates, a spinster of Lambeth (£790), Thomas Stretton, a druggist of Coleshill, Warwickshire (£500), and Joseph Dyer, a victualler (£865). (fn. 239) But in July 1824 work on a few houses was sufficiently far advanced for Lord Kensington to begin executing leases, on the security of which Dowley and Tuck were able to borrow much larger sums. Between that date and April 1826 they or their nominees were granted leases for twenty-nine houses: Nos. 2–15, 18–20 (originally two houses, the larger westerly one being divided into two—19 and 20—in 1832–3), and 38–49 Pembroke Square, and No. 84 Earl's Court Road (the Pembroke Arms public house, now renamed the Hansom Cab). (fn. 240)

Four of these leases were granted by direction of Dowley and Tuck to builders in payment for work done on the houses then in course of construction, namely of No. 8 to George Benson of Kensington, painter, whose accounts show that the cost of building the carcase of this house was about £350, of No. 4 to Thomas Pike of St. Marylebone, stonemason, of No. 9 to Thomas Smith of Chelsea, carpenter, who was also granted an underlease by Dowley and Tuck of No. 48, and of No. 5 to Tuck's father, the builder Richard Tuck. (fn. 241)

All the rest of the leases granted by Lord Kensington until April 1826 were either to Dowley and Tuck, or at their nomination to investors, who by a long series of not always comprehensible transactions either lent money on mortgage or purchased improved ground rents. The most important of these investors was Thomas Gooch, a retired watchmaker living at Turnham Green, Chiswick, who at the time of his death in 1832 owned over seventy leasehold houses, mostly in Clerkenwell where he had formerly lived. (fn. 242) Between December 1824 and September 1825 he lent Dowley and Tuck £3,320, secured in various ways on Nos. 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12–15 and 45–47 Pembroke Square. (fn. 243) He was also, at Dowley and Tuck's nomination, the head lessee of the Pembroke Arms, which he sub-let to the victualler Joseph Dyer at a much larger rent. (fn. 244) Subsequently Dowley and Tuck sub-let the adjoining house, No. 49 Pembroke Square, to Dyer, probably in part repayment of the unsecured loan of £865 which Dyer had previously made to them. (fn. 245)

The next most important investors in the development of Pembroke Square were various members of the Hawks family. In February 1825 Edward Hawks of Camberwell, gentleman, had at Dowley and Tuck's nomination been granted a lease of No. 11, (fn. 246) and later in the same year his kinsmen, Sir Robert Shafto Hawks and John Hawks, esquire, both of Newcastle upon Tyne, had been involved in a mortgage of property in Clerkenwell to which Gooch was also a party. (fn. 247) Sir Robert was head of the engineering firm of Hawks, Crawshay and Company of Gateshead, which had prospered greatly during the Napoleonic Wars. (fn. 248) In November 1825 Dowley and Tuck mortgaged their lease of Nos. 18–20 for £600 to Sir Robert and John Hawks, who at once sub-let the houses back to Dowley and Tuck at an improved ground rent. (fn. 249) Shortly afterwards they advanced another £600 upon the security of Dowley and Tuck's building agreement of May 1823. (fn. 250) Their investment in Pembroke Square was evidently arranged by John Hawks's son, Thomas Longridge Hawks, an attorney of Gray's Inn, and shows the profits of provincial manufacturing industry being used to finance metropolitan building. (fn. 251)

The various mortgages and other devices which Dowley and Tuck used to raise the capital for the building of Pembroke Square were not sufficient, however, to enable them to weather the great credit crisis of the autumn of 1825. In February 1826 (when Joseph and Thomas Brindley's operations in nearby Warwick Square failed) they resorted to a City banker for a short-term loan on bills of exchange, but at the end of June they both went into hiding in Greenwich ‘to keep out of the way of their Creditors’, and on 3 July they were declared bankrupt. (fn. 252)

The bankruptcy proceedings had evidently been started by Sarah Gates, whose unsecured loan of £790 had never been repaid; (fn. 253) and although Dowley and Tuck's total debts were much smaller than those of the Brindleys many of their creditors were to suffer very heavily. Their property was quickly put into the hands of three assignees, the most important of whom was John Warren, a timber merchant of Whitehall Wharf, (fn. 254) and it was soon found that their affairs were ‘in a very intricate state’. (fn. 255) The debts claimed by over fifty creditors amounted to nearly £10,000, of which the largest were to Lord Kensington (£1,843 for the supply of bricks) and to William Hoof (£1,323 for work done on the still uncompleted Kensington Canal). (fn. 256) Dowley and Tuck in turn were owed about £3,200, of which £2,476 was claimed from the Canal Company. (fn. 257)

At the time of the bankruptcy only about half a dozen houses in Pembroke Square were actually occupied, (fn. 36) but many others were in various stages of construction. In August 1826 the creditors accordingly authorized the three assignees to carry out the building agreement of May 1823, complete the unfinished houses and sell them and all the ground as yet unbuilt upon. (fn. 258)

The creditor who seems to have fared best in the complex transactions which now ensued was Thomas Gooch, the retired watchmaker with well-secured interests in twelve houses in the square. Of these, he had already leased No. 46 to the stonemason Thomas Pike (probably in consideration of work done on several houses), (fn. 259) and in September 1826 the assignees ordered seven others to be sold at auction. All of these were already ‘in the occupation of tenants of great respectability, at rents producing near 320l a year’, (fn. 260) but only two of the houses found buyers (for £350 and £375), and in the following month Gooch was able to buy the equity of redemption in all the eleven houses in which he still had an interest (Nos. 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12–15, 45 and 47) for £250. (fn. 261) During the ensuing seven years he or his executors sold at least eight of these houses for prices ranging between £300 and £450, (fn. 262) and at his death in 1832, when the probate valuation of his personal estate was £25,000, he also seems to have had an interest in several other houses in Pembroke Square. (fn. 263)

Sir Robert Shafto Hawks and John Hawks also appear to have extricated themselves from the situation brought about by Dowley and Tuck's bankruptcy without pecuniary loss. They, or rather T. L. Hawks, who conducted all their affairs relating to Pembroke Square, did, however, have to battle hard to get their money back. At the time of the bankruptcy the legal formalities relating to their loan of £600 on a mortgage of Nos. 18–20 do not seem to have been completed (the houses being certainly unfinished) and they may not have been able to recover this specific loan, but by another mortgage for £600 on the building agreement they were entitled to either the repayment of this sum or, as T. L. Hawks was soon demanding, the residue of the still undeveloped land covered by the agreement. Lord Kensington wanted the assignees to relinquish this land to him (as he later successfully managed to do in similar circumstances in Warwick Square), while leaving them the job of clearing up the muddle in the half-finished square. (fn. 253)

The assignees were unwilling to redeem the mortgage to the Hawkses, for they were already having to pay out large sums in wages to the workmen whom they were employing to complete a number of houses in the square. (fn. 264) In January 1827 they did, however, offer T. L. Hawks £550 for his interest in the building agreement, which he rejected. Shortly afterwards Lord Kensington riposted with a counter-claim to an equitable mortgage on the agreement for £1,000 in respect of bricks supplied to Dowley and Tuck. Faced with this impasse the assignees decided to wash their hands of the matter, and after obtaining the concurrence of the creditors, announced in April that they would relinquish all their rights in the building agreement to either Lord Kensington or the Hawkses. (fn. 265)

Lord Kensington's claim for £1,000 related to the purchase by Dowley of 60,000 bricks which were later used by John Campbell (a slater who had some years previously worked in Edwardes Square) in the building of Nos. 1 and 2 Pembroke Villas. (fn. 266) It was probably not a very wellfounded claim, for both Dowley and Campbell disputed the statements of Lord Kensington's surveyor, William Cutbush, and claimed that the bricks in question had been bought from someone else. (fn. 255) At all events Lord Kensington seems to have been the loser in his argument with T. L. Hawks, for in October 1827 and May 1828 he granted Hawks (or his nominees) building leases of all the remaining land affected by the building agreement of 1823.

Several tradesmen involved in one way or another in Pembroke Square also seem to have come through the crash relatively unscathed. In 1827 John Campbell, the slater, was granted the head lease of Nos. 1 and 2 Pembroke Villas, which were first occupied in 1828–9, and the vacant site on which Nos. 3 and 4 were later built. (fn. 267) Nos. 1 and 2, called at first Pembroke Cottages South, form a pair of two-storey houses with stuccoed façades and were originally semi-detached, but No. 1 is now linked to the terrace to the north by a late-nineteenth-century extension. Similarly William Goddard, a wheelwright, received the head lease of No. 1 Pembroke Square, and Samuel and Samuel Manton Briggs that of No. 17 by Hawks's direction. (fn. 268) In 1828 the timber merchant John Warren, one of the assignees in bankruptcy, was (also by Hawks's direction) granted the leases of No. 16 and the site of the Scarsdale Arms. (fn. 269)

But most of the creditors lost heavily. Their claim for £2,476 from the Canal Company was, after much contention, settled by the issue of some promissory notes and shares which realized only £320 when sold a short time after the canal's opening. (fn. 270) The assignees' costs in employing workmen to finish a number of houses amounted to £1,600, (fn. 271) and after the final dividend was declared early in 1830 most of the creditors had received only one shilling and three pence in the pound on the debts due to them. (fn. 272)

Robert Tuck, one of the co-authors of their misfortunes, had been the first to take up residence in the square, where he lived with his family at No. 7 from about May 1825 to May 1826. (fn. 273) In 1828 he was living in Lamb's Conduit Street, Holborn, and described himself as a gentleman. (fn. 274) John Dowley, the salaried chief surveyor of the Westminster Commissioners of Sewers, had through his frequent absences from his office aroused the Commissioners' suspicions some six months before his bankruptcy. (fn. 275) Immediately after his failure became known he was declared to have forfeited his position, but he was kept on temporarily, and when the post was advertised early in 1827 he was the only applicant. (fn. 276) He was therefore reappointed and held the post until 1845, when, suffering from debility and gout, he was superseded as chief surveyor by one of his own staff (John Phillips). He was, however, kept on as a consultant surveyor at a salary of £200 per annum until the demise of the Westminster Commission of Sewers at the end of 1847. (fn. 277)

Between about October 1827, when he had successfully asserted his claim to possession of the remaining ground under the building agreement of 1823, and his own death in 1829, T. L. Hawks was in charge of the continuation of the development begun by Dowley and Tuck. By May 1828 Lord Kensington had granted building leases of all the houses on the north and south sides of Pembroke Square except Nos. 32A and 33–37, which he now leased to Hawks (Nos. 32A and 33) and the latter's nominee, William Wade, a fellow lawyer (Nos. 34–37). (fn. 278) Hawks made arrangements with two builders, John Sims, stonemason, and William Sparkes, builder, to complete Nos. 32A and 33, and in 1829 his brother and executor, George Hawks of Gateshead, esquire, sold both houses to Thomas Gooch, the retired watchmaker, who soon disposed of them, the first occupant of No. 32A, William Toone, esquire, paying £420 for his house. (fn. 279) At Nos. 34–37 Wade seems to have provided the funds, and Thomas Steel, a local carpenter, was granted the sub-lease of No. 36 in 1829, probably in payment for completing the houses, all of which had been disposed of by 1831 (fn. 280) It was also under the Hawkses' auspices that the back gardens of several of the houses on the south side of Pembroke Square were extended some fifty feet southwards and provided with rear access from Pembroke Walk, a cul-de-sac leading off Pembroke Villas.

By the end of 1830 all the houses on the north and south sides of Pembroke Square (Plates 110b, 111b, fig. 113) had been completed and occupied, (fn. 36) but Dowley and Tuck had done much less work on the western range, and building leases here had not been granted until May 1828. The lessee was T. L. Hawks, to whom at the same time Lord Kensington also leased all the remaining undeveloped land around the square, within the bounds of the original ‘take’ of May 1823. (fn. 281) Hawks's executor, George Hawks, made arrangements with the builders Thomas Steel, John Sims and Roger Spink for the completion of Nos. 24–35A, which are virtually identical with the north and south ranges, and they were all occupied by 1835. (fn. 282)

In 1831, meanwhile, George Hawks had sold his family's interest in all the houses in the western range and in the remaining unbuilt area for £1,500. (fn. 283) The purchaser was William Collins, a builder who had been active in the early 1820s to the east of Earl's Court Road (see page 110). From 1828 to 1834, when he began to describe himself as gentleman or esquire, he lived at No. 34 Edwardes Square, (fn. 36) and it was under his auspices and, after 1860, those of his window, that the development of the Pembroke Square area was at last completed.

As happened in Warwick Gardens after the Brindleys' debacle, this proved to be a lengthy business, housebuilding in the 1830s being in one of its periodic phases of recession. At first Collins concentrated on the development of the remaining land to the north of the western side of Pembroke Square, where c. 1835–7 he extended the western range by the erection of Nos. 22 and 23. Despite their slightly larger size and different window dressings, these houses closely resemble Nos. 24–35A. (fn. 284) In 1839 he built the still larger No. 21, a two-storey, stuccofaced house, first occupied in 1843, which now has a heightened attic storey. (fn. 285) He was probably also responsible for the adjoining Nos. 1 and 2 Pembroke Cottages, an attractive pair of two-storey villas with low slate roofs (Plate 110d), which were first occupied in 1843–4. Their site had been acquired in 1831 by John Warren, the timber merchant who had been one of Dowley and Tuck's assignees, from George Hawks as executor of T. L. Hawks, but Warren had since died. (fn. 286) The similar pair, Nos. 3 and 4 Pembroke Cottages, which stood on land which was originally let for the development of Edwardes Square, were first occupied in 1846 and demolished c. 1932 for the building of Pembroke Court. Collins had acquired their site in 1831 from the executors of John Robins, an auctioneer who had been active in Edwardes Square. (fn. 287)

All nineteen houses between No. 4 Pembroke Cottages, which had a flank frontage on the south side of Edwardes Square, and No. 35A Pembroke Square belonged to Collins. The frequent occurrence of his name as ratepayer (sometimes ‘for tenant’) at many of the houses in this range between 1832 and his death in 1860 suggests that he often let them on short leases. For much of the period after 1837 he himself lived at No. 23 Pembroke Square. (fn. 36)

Collins's remaining undeveloped land had a frontage of over six hundred feet along the north side of Pembroke Road, and short return frontages to Pembroke Villas and the west side of Earl's Court Road. In 1844–6, when the building cycle was again on the upturn, he granted building leases of Nos. 98–108 (even) Earl's Court Road to his kinsman Thomas Collins of Newland Terrace, builder, who erected a range (originally known as Pembroke Terrace) of routine three-storey houses with basements, each two windows wide and faced with stucco at ground-floor level. (fn. 288) No. 108 was reconstructed in 1953–4 after war damage. Further north the site of Nos. 94 and 96 Earl's Court Road had originally formed part of the extensive curtilage of the Pembroke Arms, (fn. 289) and these two houses were built a few years after Nos. 98–108, but the identily of their builder is not known.

William Collins appears to have himself built Nos. 3 and 4 Pembroke Villas in 1850, having seven years earlier purchased their site, which had originally been leased in 1827 by Lord Kensington to the slater John Campbell. (fn. 290) These attractive paired houses have three storeys above basements with channelled stucco on the ground floor and simple moulded architraves to the windows of the upper storeys. The first-floor windows also have ornate iron window-guards. The adjoining No. 5 Pembroke Villas was built shortly afterwards on ground belonging to Collions and was first occupied in 1859. It was originally only two bays wide, but after an intened private road along the sourthern boundary of its curtilage was eventually abandoned, a matching third bay was added. (fn. 291)

William Collins's contemporaeous building activities in Pembroke Road are described below. He died at No. 23 Pembroke Square in 1860, leaving effects valued at over £12,000 to his windows, Phoebe. (fn. 292) One of the witness of his will was the local builder Thomas Holland, who shortly afterwards built Nos. 6 and 7 Pembroke Villas, a mirrored pair of small houses which have only two main storeys above a basement but pack in a number of features including large bay windows on the basement and ground floors and recessed entrances behind a double arch supported by a Doric column and responding pilasters. They were first occupied in 1864. (fn. 293)

Further north in the same road, in the short unnamed strech between Edwardes Square and Pembroke Square, the Scarsdale Arms, a detached, three-storey public house faced in stock brick with florid stucco dressings (Plate 110c), was erected in 1866–7 by James Broadhurst, a beer retailer of Kentish Town. The first tenant was R. Madworth. (fn. 294)

Phoebe Collins died at No. 22 Pembroke Square in 1876, leaving effects valued at about £25,000—more than double those of her husband sixteen years previously. (fn. 295)

Notable Residents

Residents in Pembroke Square have included: Thomas Christopher Hofland, landscape painter, and his wife Barbara Hofland, authoress, 1833–7 (No. 6); John Thorpe, artist, 1846–52 (No. 18); Robert Lugar, architect and author of several books of architectural designs, 1851–5 (No. 19); George Brettingham Sowerby the younger, conchologist and artist, 1857–9 (No. 9); Henry Alexander Bowler, artist, 1863–1903 (No. 21), and Sir Almroth Edward Wright, bacteriologist, 1920–c. 1942 (No. 6). (fn. 296) According to his biographer, the dramatist Dion Boucicault moved to Pembroke Square c. 1841 shortly after the success of his play ‘The London Assurance’, but his name does not appear in the ratebooks and his residence there was probably very brief. (fn. 297) In Pembroke Villas Thomas Fairland, engraver and lithographer, lived at No. 2, 1843–9, and Normal O'Neill, composer, at lived No. 4, 1904–34. (Sir) William Rothenstein, artist, and Laurence Housman, writer, lived at No. 1 Pembroke Cottages in 1899–1902 and 1904–19 respectively. (fn. 298)

Pembroke Square Garden

An eighty-nine-year lease of the enclosure in the centre of Pembroke Square was granted by Lord Kensington c. 1834, probably to William Collins, in whom it was vested in 1860. (fn. 299) A building at the east end of the garden is shown on maps of 1837 and 1843, (fn. 300) and probably originally functioned as a lodge in a similar manner to that in Edwardes Square. It was indeed for many years known as ‘The Lodge’ before being numbered firstly No. 60 Earl's Court Road and then No. 80 in 1907. In the late nineteenth century it was used principally by a succession of florists and was acquired by Charles Rassell, gardener, c. 1897. (fn. 301) Rassell was the son of Henry Rassell, a gardener, who had lived at No. 1 Shaftesbury Terrace (later No. 179 Warwick Road) since c. 1879 and had taken a sub-lease of some of the garden plots which were provided as part of the layout of that area of working-class cottages (see page 285). (fn. 302) In 1903 Rassell undertook alterations to the house, and its basic appearance today accords with that date. (fn. 303)

Rassell also acquired the freehold of the square garden, probably in the same year, when this part of the Edwardes estate was being sold in lots. (fn. 304) In 1923 he applied to the London Country Council for permission to build two houses at the western end of the enclosure, which was apparently not protected by any covenants restricting building, but his application was refused as undersirable. (fn. 305) Shortly afterwards the Prudential Assurance Company paid £3,000 for the freehold of land to the depth of sixty-nine feet at this end of the square on behalf of the freeholders of the surrounding houses. Rassell retained the ownership of the remaining 210 feet of the enclosure, but entered into a covenant not to build on 175 feet of this. (fn. 306)

Today the western end of the square is occupied by a small formal garden, the middle part by a tennis court, and the eastern end by Rassell's Nursery.

Later Changes in the Area

Despite some unfortunate alterations to a few of the houses the outward aspect of the two main ranges of Pembroke Square—like the very similar ones in Edwardes Square—has not changed markedly. Substantial changes have, however, taken place on the rear parts of some of the house plots. Most of the former gardens of the first five houses on the north side of the square are now covered by No. 74 Earl's Court Road, a three-storey office block which was erected in 1969 to the designs of Dennis Ball, (fn. 307) while on the south side the frontage to Earl's Court Road immediately to the south of the Hansom Cab is occupied by a small block of flats, Nos. 88–92 (even) Earl's Court Road, which was erected in 1931–2. (fn. 308)

In both Earl's Walk, behind the northern range of the square, and more particularly in Pembroke Walk on the south, a number of small studio houses date from the late nineteenth century onwards. No. 3 Earl's Walk was built in 1915 to the designs of E. Guy Dawber as a studio for No. 6 Pembroke Square, (fn. 309) but it is now largely obscured and in poor condition externally. The complex of studios at Nos. 23, 25 and 27 Earl's Walk date originally from 1903 (Nos. 25 and 27) and 1912 (No. 23 and the entrance forecourt, for which Sydney Newcombe was the architect) but have been much altered. (fn. 310) In Pembroke Walk Nos. 2–4 (consec.) have been converted from a late-nineteenth-century builder's works (of Thomas W. Heath and Son), while the attractive complex at Nos. 6–8 (consec.) was built as Pembroke Walk Studios c. 1902–3. (fn. 311)

Pear Tree Cottage, which stands behind Nos. 1 and 2 Pembroke Cottages, dates from the 1920s and was probably begun in 1923. (fn. 312)

Artists' studios (now Nos. 2A and 2B Pembroke Road) were built in the back garden of No. 108 Earl's Court Road c. 1900. (fn. 313) They are screened from Pembroke Road by a stuccoed curtain wall surmounted by two small pediments. The recent redevelopment of Nos. 24–42 (even) Pembroke Road, which fall within the area originally taken by Dowley and Tuck, is described on page 275.

Pembroke Gardens and Pembroke Gardens Close

Pembroke Gardens consists of two short stretches of street meeting at a right angle. The position of the east-west arm was determined during the building of Warwick Gardens in the 1850s, but only a short opening into the new street was formed then. One house, now No. 35 Pembroke Gardens, was built on the north side by 1860, but it belonged essentially to the development of Warwick Gardens and is described on page 266. The remainder of the street was laid out from 1863 onwards.

The principal undertaker here in the 1860s was Richard Albion Holliday of Newland Street (now Abingdon Road), who described himself as a contractor. Two years earlier, when his address had been Emma Place (now Cope Place) and his designation that of ‘carman’, he had begun to build a terrace of eight houses in Newland Street, which were originally known as Albion Terrace and are now Nos. 53–67 (odd) Abingdon Road. At first the houses he built there were small, plain and somewhat outdated, but midway through the terrace he switched to building larger, more ornamented and more conventional houses for their date. After this apparently initial foray into the building world, Holliday moved on to the construction of even larger, though hardly less conventional, houses in Pembroke Gardens, and, after briefly taking up residence in a house there (No. 18), he then progressed further westwards by December 1868, to the Grove Tavern, Hammersmith. (fn. 314) In the years 1863–8 Holliday, who was illiterate and signed all deeds with a mark, seems to have been in charge of the building of twenty-seven houses in Pembroke Gardens (Nos. 1–27, of which Nos. 1–12 have been demolished) and was himself granted leases, or in one instance a sublease, of twenty-five of these. The lessee of the other two houses was John Seymour, also of Newland Street, a carpenter, (fn. 315) who made the initial application to the Metropolitan Board of Works to form the north-south arm of the street, (fn. 316) and was clearly assisting Holliday from the start.

The initial agreement for building on the east side of the new street appears to have been made, not with Holliday, however, but with Frederick Blasson Carritt of Basinghall Street in the City, a solicitor. Carritt was granted the first lease, of No. 1 Pembroke Gardens and a large plot at its rear (now the site of Pembroke Gardens Close), in December 1863, and sub-let the smaller site on which No. 1 was erected to Holliday, while retaining the piece of ground behind. He was subsequently a party to the leases of Nos. 2–12 (consec.) on the east side, which were granted between December 1863 and December 1864. (fn. 317) The leases of Nos. 13–27 (consec.) were granted directly to Holliday by Lord Kensington in 1866–8. (fn. 318)

Carritt appears to have been fulfilling the archetypical role of the solicitor in the Victorian building process, probably providing money himself, but also encouraging clients to invest their capital in mortgages to Holliday. Even in the mortgages of Nos. 13–27, where Carritt had not been a party to the leases, the witnesses to the deeds usually included one of his clerks. Among the mortgagees were two dissenting ministers, from Plaistow in Essex and from Greenwich, a farmer from Bedfordshire, an ‘esquire’ of Lincolnshire (who had also provided mortgages for Holliday's speculations in Abingdon Road), a widow of Highbury Crescent, and a gentleman of Peckham. (fn. 319)

In August 1865 Holliday also turned to the London Assurance Corporation for money, applying for a loan of £6,800 on the security of nine houses, of which seven had already been let to ‘highly respectable’ tenants at the (somewhat low sounding) total rental of £455 per annum. The Corporation agreed to advance £4,000, but when Holliday applied for a further £6,000 on ten more houses in March 1866, the Corporation, for reasons not specified, declined his request. (fn. 320)

The houses which Holliday built seem to have found a ready market, judging from their rapid occupancy rate. They were good-sized houses with three main storeys over basements and were arranged mostly in semi-detached pairs. Nos. 1–12 (now demolished) had larger plots and more space between each pair, though by the end of the nineteenth century most of these spaces had been filled in by one- or two-storey additions at the sides of the houses. (fn. 321) At the north end of the west side, No. 23 is a larger double-fronted house attached to its neighbouring pair on the south, while Nos. 24–27 are terraced houses with an additional garret storey (Plate 114b). All of the surviving houses (Nos. 13–27) are fully stuccoed up to first-floor level and are faced with grey bricks and stucco dressings in the upper storeys. The paired houses have flat doorcases with hood moulds and bay windows, while the terraced houses have projecting Doric porches and iron-railed balconies but are otherwise flat-fronted.

Nos. 28–30 were not built by Holliday, but by Samuel Johns, the builder who lived opposite in Garibaldi Villa (now No. 35). The ground here had originally been let with the Wesleyan Chapel at the corner of Warwick Gardens to the chapel's proprietors and was sub-let by them to Johns in 1870. (fn. 322) Although superficially resembling Holliday's houses, those built by Johns are different in a number of details, though whether these variations in a number of details, though whether these variations were the result of Johns's desire to impose his own individuality on the houses or his inability to build to another's façde design is no longer apparent.

Pembroke Lodge (now demolished), a detached house with an extensive garden which now forms most of the site of Pembroke Gardens Close, was erected by 1868 on the remainder of the large plot which had been leased to Carritt in 1863. The house was probably built by Holliday, whose other houses in Pembroke Gardens it resembled. It was purchased for £2,500 in 1909 by Andrew Bonar Law, the Conservative politician and later Prime Minister, who lived there until 1917, when he moved to No. 11 Downing Street following his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the previous December. Pembroke Lodge was subsequently used as a convalescent home for wounded officers. (fn. 323)

Other notable occupants of houses in Pembroke Gardens included Samuel Smiles, the writer and social reformer, author of Self-Help, at No. 4 from c. 1876 to 1881 and then at No. 8 from 1881 to his death in 1904; Oswald Sickert, painter, at No. 12 from 1877 to his death in 1885; and Professor John William Mackail, the classical scholar, poet and critic, who lived at No. 6 for the last forty-seven years of his life from 1898 to 1945. (fn. 324) Mackail's daughter, the novelist Angela Thirkell, also lived at No. 6 for much of her life and did not finally leave it until 1947. (fn. 325) Her son, Colin Maclnnes, recalled the house as ‘one of those bleak, inconvenient Roman piles … its rooms were all too high for their width, its staircase too narrow for two persons to pass by, and its plumbing recalled that of a provincial railway hotel’. (fn. 326)

During the war of 1939–45 Nos. 8–12 Pembroke Gardens and nearby houses in Pembroke Road were destroyed or severely damaged by bombing. In 1949 the Prudential Assurance Company, which owned the free-hold of the site, announced plans to redevelop the whole of the east side of Pembroke Gardens together with the west side of Pembroke Square and Villas, and the north side of Pembroke Road between those streets. (fn. 327) It proposed to proceed in stages beginning with the replacement of the war-damaged houses, for which a building licence was granted in December 1951. Seven new houses, Nos. 8–12 Pembroke Gardens and 46–48 Pembroke Road, were erected with garages sunk slightly below street level and two storeys above. Of a plain, simple appearance, they are faced with white-painted Flettons and have flat roofs, both items being largely dictated by the need to keep within specified cost limits at that date. They were designed by the Prudential's Chief Architect, F. F. J. H. Doyle, the architect in charge of the works being L. W. Hall, and the builders Sir Robert McAlpine and Sons. (fn. 328)

The next stage took place in 1957–9 when Pembroke Lodge was demolished and Nos. 1–18 Pembroke Gardens Close were built in its former grounds. These are substantial two-storey detached or semi-detached neo-Georgian houses with red-brick façades, segmental-headed doorcases and wooden dentilled cornices. They were also designed by Doyle, with K. C. Wintle as architect in charge. No. 44 Pembroke Road was rebuilt at this time in a matching style to Nos. 46 and 48. Nos. 24–42 (even) Pembroke Road were erected in 1961–3 to Wintle's designs and differ from Nos. 44–48 in having three storeys faced with multi-coloured stock bricks above basement garages. (fn. 329)

In 1966–8 Nos. 1–7 Pembroke Gardens were replaced by twelve houses of similar dimensions to Nos. 8–12 though faced with multi-coloured bricks and with large bow windows at first-floor level (Plate 114c). The architect was L. H. Nixon of the Prudential's Architect's Department. Finally, in 1970–2, Nos. 19–32 Pembroke Gardens Close were built on ground taken from the back gardens of houses on the west side of Pembroke Square and Pembroke Villas. These houses, also designed by Nixon, are plainer than their earlier counterparts on the opposite side of Pembroke Gardens Close and have prominent garages in front. (fn. 330) The proposed redevelopment of houses in Pembroke Square and Villas did not take place.

Nos. 31–34 Pembroke Gardens, which were built on the former site of the Wesleyan Chapel at the corner of Warwick Gardens, are described on page 267.

Pembroke Studios

This attractive complex of small studio houses was erected in 1890–1. It Comprises two ranges of six gabled studios, built of stock bricks with red-brick dressings, which face on to a secluded, planted enclosure (fig. 114). This is screened from the street by an elaborate arched entrance (fig. 115) which is set back a short distance from the north side of Pembroke Gardens behind another planted area. The builder was Charles Frederick Kearley, but the identity of the architect is not known. (fn. 331)

Pembroke Road Area

Pembroke Road was projected as early as the 1820s, (fn. 332) its course effectively determined in 1823 by the southern boundary of the land made available to Dowley and Tuck for the laying out of Pembroke Square and its surrounding area. Yet such was the protracted nature of that development that it was not until the 1840 that any building took place along the street, and then on the south side rather than the north. And for many years afterwards the buildings on the south side of the street, with one or twominor exceptions, marked the southernmost limit of building operations on the Edwardes estate. Beyond lay the market gardens of Karl's Court Farm, and it was not until the construction of the Metroploitan District Railway in 1865–8 that this productive land was surrendered to the speculative builder.

Pembroke Road, South Side

The developer of the whole of the south side of Pembroke Road was Stephen Bird, the prominent Kensington builder and brickmaker, (fn. 333) who already held much land hereanouts on short tenancies for brickmaking, excavating gravel, or for farming. (fn. 334) From the early 1840s onwards Bird gradually began to line the south side of the road with paired villas, the first of them being occupied in 1844. (fn. 36) In 1840, when sixteen houses, originally Nos. 1–16 Pembroke Road but renumbered in 1866 as 1–31 (odd), were completed or in course of building. Bird was granted a ninety-three-year lease by Lord Kensington of all of the south side of the street between Earl's Court Road and Warwick Road with the exception of one house plot, that of No. 8 (later No. 15), which was leased directly to Bird's son-in-law, Thomas Allen Hockley. (fn. 335) Besides the houses in Pembroke Road, Bird had also erected another house and ancillary buildings further to the west on the ground leased to him, facing Warwick Road a little to the south of the projected junction of the two roads. This was occupied from 1848 to 1866 by Mrs. Hannah Johnson as the Warwick Farm Dairy. (fn. 336)

After obtaining his lease Bird built three more houses, Nos. 17–19, later Nos. 33–37 (odd), consisting of another pair of villas and a detached house at the corner of a new fifty-foot-wide roadway (now called Cromwell Crescent) which led out of Pembroke Road. Of these nineteen houses which were erected by Bird only three, Nos. 29–33 (odd), still survive. Their varied appearance is in part due to later alterations, but even originally Bird's houses were by no means uniform, some having two main storeys and others three and varying in width. They were all stuccoed, however, mostly with Doric doorcases and prominent bandcourses dividing the storeys.

Nos. 1–27 (odd) Pembroke Road were replaced by two six-storey blocks of flats, Chatsworth Court and the smaller Marlborough Court, both of which were designed by Murrell and Pigott and erected in 1934–5 and 1937–8 respectively. The same architects were also responsible for the west-facing terrace of eight three-storey houses at Nos. 10–17 (consec.) Cromwell Crescent, which were erected in 1936–7 in place of Nos. 35 and 37 Pembroke Road. The houses are in a typical 1930s idiorn with brown-brick façades, composition balconies and step, green-pantiled roofs. (fn. 337)

Between the roadway now called Cromwell Crescent and Warwick Road, a distance of some five hundred feet, the ground on the south side of Pembroke Road was used for the construcation of a factory for the celebrated French piano and harp manufacturers, Messrs. S. and P. Erard (fig. 116). The firm, which had been founded in 1780 in Paris by Sébastien Erard, had had a branch in London since at least 1794. This was situated at No. 18 Great Marlborough Street in the parish of St. James, Westminster, and in the early nineteenth century there was also a workshop in Little Portland Street, St. Marylebone. (fn. 338) After Sebastien's death in 1831 the business was conducted by his nephew, Pierre Erard.

The only Council Medal to be awarded for pianos in the Great Exhibition of 1851 went to and Erard. (fn. 339) While the decision to erect a factory in Kensington must have been taken before this triumph, the events were not unconnected, as the firm's position as the leading piano manufacturer in the world at that date (fn. 340) was reflected both in its success at the Exhibition and in the evident need to expand production in England.

The factory was under construction by March 1851 (fn. 341) and probably came into production towards the end of that year. (fn. 36) On 25 December 1851 Stephen Bird, who already held the ground under the lease from Lord Kensington mentioned above and who may well have built the premises, granted a sub-lease of the site to Pierre Erard. (fn. 342) The layout of the factory appears to have been based closely on that of the firm's manufactory in the Rue de Flandre in Paris, and from the evidence of the surviving fragment of the buildings, its appearance was also very similar. (fn. 343) The principal buildings were two four-storey blocks, each some 140 feet in length and divided into nine bays with wide segmental-headed small-paned windows. These blocks (of which one still survives though shortened by a bay) were at the eastern end of the site, parallel to each other and to Pembroke Road. To the west, on each side of a long driveway, were a number of other structures which, on the evidence of the French factory, were probably used principally for the storage and seasoning of timber. Initially the factory occupied an area of about two acres, the wide spaces between buildings being dictated by the need to take especial precautions against the spread of fire in an establishment where so much of the material stored and used was highly combustible.

The evidence provided by the surviving part of the northern range shows that the prevention of the spread of fire also formed a major consideration in the internal planning of the building. Here each storey is basically divided into three compartments by two thick brick lateral walls, with further lath-and-plaster partitioning on some floors. Communication between the compartments is through a single opening in the centre of each internal wall furnished with a double set of thick iron doors. Within each compartment the wide floor-span was carried on an intricate arrangement of timber beams supported by castiron columns (intermediate wooden posts having been added later when the building was put to other uses). Only one narrow staircase appears to have been provided for the whole block. Constructed of stone, it is confined within brick walls, and access to each floor is through a sliding iron door.

In 1855, according to its own publicity, Erards produced annually over 1,000 pianos and harps at its Kensington factory and employed some 300 workers (including the staff of its showrooms in Great Marlborough Street). (fn. 344) Pierre Erard died in that year and the direction of the business passed to his widow.

The factory was enlarged in 1859 when a further one and a half acres immediately to the south of the main site were added to its grounds. This land, which had originally been reserved for a continuation of the mews now called Logan Place, was leased directly by Lord Kensington for eighty-three years to George John and Charles James Bruzaud of Great Marlborough Street, harp and pianoforte manufacturers. (fn. 345) George John Bruzaud was the head of the London branch of Erards, and his brother Charles James, who lived in the detached house at No. 37 Pembroke Road, was apparently the manager of its Kensington factory. (fn. 346) In about 1866 the site of the former dairy in Warwick Road was also added, and at its greatest extent the factory occupied some four acres of land (see site plan in fig. 116).

By the end of the 1870s, however, a period of contraction had set in. The former dairy premises were disposed of in 1877 to the Kensington Vestry to be used as stables in connection with the Vestry's nearby depot, and in the census of 1881 the factory was listed as having only 127 employees. (fn. 347) Finally in 1890 the premises were closed down and the materials and machinery on the site were sold at auction. (fn. 348) The ostensible reason for the closure was the recent death of Madame Erard (late in 1889), (fn. 340) but the firm had, in fact, been in decline for some years. It was unwilling to adopt modern technological innovations and was increasingly unable to compete with cheaper products, particularly from Germany. There was also an element of rationalization in its decision to close its London factory, where wages were comparatively high, and concentrate production in Paris. (fn. 350) At that time Erards planned to close down their whole establishment in London, but in the following year the business came under new management and a decision was taken to rebuild the showrooms in Great Marlborough Street and provide a concert hall there on the model of the Salle Erard in Paris. This was completed by 1894, (fn. 351) but the manufacture of pianos continued to be restricted to the Paris works.

Over the next few years, through a complicated series of assignments and sub-leases, the site of the factory was divided between the Kensington Vestry, which took the north-western part as an addition to its depot, John Barker and Company, which took the eastern part of the site with its two substantial buildings for warehouses, Bishop and Sons, the furniture removers, who also used the southwestern part for depositories, and the cheesemonger and property developer, Jubal Webb, who proposed to use the southern part of the frontage to Cromwell Crescent for speculative building. (fn. 352) Barkers soon devised schemes for the better utilization of their ground, and a number of buildings were added to the designs of Philip E. Pilditch. In 1902–3 a new five-storey depository was built to link the western ends of the two existing blocks and a red-brick wall was erected on the Pembroke Road frontage.

The most ambitious plans, however, were for the frontage to Cromwell Crescent, where additional land was acquired from Jubal Webb in 1902. Here in 1903–4 the range of flats called Warwick Mansions was erected by Barkers' Building Department to Pilditch's designs. On the northern part of the site, which had only a very shallow depth, the company had wanted to extend the depositories and give them the appearance of residences, but the free-holder, Lord Iveagh, who had purchased this part of Lord Kensington's estate late in 1902, refused his consent, and the range of flats was extended almost to the corner with Pembroke Road, where it was furnished with a crowning cupola. A bay of the former piano factory was demolished to give additional depth to the flats. (fn. 353) Pilditch's eclectic design for Warwick Mansions, with its plentiful use of red brick and terracotta and some surprising elements like half-timbering and pebbledash beneath the small triangular gables, is an ebullient example of the late Domestic Revival style (Plate 115b).

Barkers sold Warwick Mansions to a property company in 1929, (fn. 354) and in 1975 they also gave up their depositories. Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council, then about to take possession of the large new Central Depot which had replaced the old depots on both the north and south sides of Pembroke Road (see page 284), decided to purchase the depositories for even more accommodation. (fn. 355) A number of alterations have since been made including the demolition of the southern block of the former Erards' factory buildings.

Pembroke Road, North Side

On the north side of Pembroke Road, the frontage for some six hundred feet westwards of Earl's Court Road had formed the southern boundary of Dowley and Tuck's ‘take’ of 1823 for the formation of Pembroke Square (see page 268). In 1831 the undeveloped portions of this parcel of land were purchased by William Collins (see page 271), but it was not until 1853 that he began to develop the Pembroke Road frontage. Even after such a long wait he could hardly have chosen a more unfortunate time to begin operations — just when the building industry in London was about to enter a four-year period of decline.

In January 1853 Collins concluded an agreement with Francis John Attfield of Kensington, builder, for the erection of twelve houses between Earl's Court Road and Pembroke Villas in three groups of four. The building of the first of these ranges began in August 1853, (fn. 356) not by Attfield, however, but by Barnabas Jennings and William Stephenson, formerly of Chelsea, but now with local addresses, who had been building on the east side of Earl's Court Road and in nearby streets in 1852–3 (see page 229). In October Attfield assigned the benefit of his building agreement for £125 to Jennings and Stephenson, who also paid Collins £100 for agreeing to the transfer. (fn. 357) In 1854 Collins granted leases of the four houses, by the direction of Jennings and Stephenson, to several builders' merchants. (fn. 358) the rest of the building agreement was not carried out and was presumably surrendered. The houses erected by Jennings and Stephenson, which were originally called Belmont Villas and are now Nos. 2–8 (even) Pembroke Road, are unusual in appearance with wide stuccoed door surrounds and eared architraves to the upper-storey windows, but are not without a rudimentary distinction (Plate 111a). According to the building agreement, their elevations had to be approved by Collins, whose surveyor was a Mr. Blofield, probably the William Blofield of West Brompton, who, as a surveyor, had been involved in the building of houses in Addison Road, North Kensington, a short time before. (fn. 359) (fn. n1)

Collins died in 1860, and one of the witnesses to his will was the local builder Thomas Holland, and it was to Holland's nominees that Collins's widow, Phoebe, granted building leases of Nos. 14–28 (even) Pembroke Road in 1861–3. (fn. 360) The leases of the other half-dozen houses which were erected on her land in Pembroke Road have not been found, but Holland was almost certainly involved there too. Nos. 10–12 and 14–16 are conventional stucco fronted paired houses of three main storeys with bay windows on the ground floor, and Nos. 18–22 form a similar trio. To the west of Pembroke Villas Nos. 24–42 (even), now demolished, were built under phoebe Collins's auspices, probably by Holland, and were similar houses to Nos. 10–22, though faced with grey brick and stucco dressings. Nos. 44–48 (even) were stock-brick houses erected under building leases granted directly by Lord Kensington in 1862 to Stephen Cooper of Portland Place, Hammersmith, builder, and John Seymour of Newland Street (now Abingdon Road), carpenter. (fn. 361) The latter was also involved at that time in nearby building operations in Pembroke Gardens. Nos. 46 and 48 were demolished after being severely damaged by bombing during the war of 1939–45, and over several years the remaining houses between Pembroke Gardens and Pembroke Villas were rebuilt by the Prudential Assurance Company as part of a redevelopment scheme for the area which is described on page 275.

To the west of Pembroke Gardens, Nos. 50–76 (even) Pembroke Road, a range of houses with three stucco-faced storeys above ground-floor shops, were erected by the builder James Hall, to whom Lord Kensington granted building leases in 1859. (fn. 362) Hall was also at that time building houses in Warwick Gardens at the back of this range. The Kensington Arms, a large Italianate public house at the corner with Warwick Road, and No. 82 Pembroke Road, a narrow house and shop on the east side of the public house (Plate 113a), were erected under building leases granted to James and Samuel Williams of Shepherd's Bush, contractors, in 1852 and 1854 respectively. (fn. 363) Another house built by the Williamses at approximately the same time (No. 80 Pembroke Road) has been demolished. Originally the space between Nos.76 and 80 formed the entrance to the depot of the Kensington Vestry, which was first established on the triangular site between the backs of houses in Warwick Road, Warwick Gardens and Pembroke Road in 1863 and is described more fully on page 283. In 1864 another house (No. 78) was built on the frontage to Pembroke Road as an office and residence for the foreman of the depot staff. (fn. 364) Both Nos. 78 and 80 were demolished about 1972 for the rebuilding of the depot.

Logan Place

Logan Place was originally formed in the 1840s as an unnamed mews at the rear of the houses on the south side of Pembroke Road, but for many years very few buildings of any kind were erected along its length. The name Logan Mews (which is of unknown derivation) was first adopted in 1876 for the small group of stables and coach-houses on the south side of the street towards its western end. These were erected in that year by the builder Thomas Huggett to serve his nearby developments in Cromwell Crescent and West Cromwell Road. (fn. 365) The street itself was not, however, named until 1891, when a depot for the Army and Navy Co-operative Auxiliary Supply was erected further to the east. The remaining frontage on the south side was gradually filled up over the next two decades with studios, a private house and a club-house and chambers. Much rebuilding has taken place in recent years, partly as a result of damage sustained during the war of 1939–45.

At the south-eastern corner with Earl's Court Road two brick-faced blocks of flats, Courtleigh House (No. 126 Earl's Court Road) and No. 13 Logan Place, have been erected in place of a semi-detached pair of houses which faced Earl's Court Road. These had been built under leases granted in 1858 to John Newton and James Smith, contractors, (fn. 366) and were originally called Weardale Villas; they were later numbered 84 and 86 Earl's Court Road and most recently as 124 and 126 Earl's Court Road. Courtleigh House, which is seven storeys high, was designed by Stone, Toms and Partners and erected in 1968–9. (fn. 367) No. 13 Logan Place, which has six floors of flats raised on piers above a ground-floor lobby and parking bays, was designed by David Landaw and Partners and begun in 1970. In conjunction with the latter five low split level mews houses, Nos. 10, 10a, 11, 11a and 12 Logan Place, were erected to the designs of the same architects and using the same dark multi-coloured bricks with recessed pointing. (fn. 367) To the west of these houses another seven split-level houses faced with virtually identical, brickwork and of similar height have been erected as an entirely separate development to the designs of Cusdin Burden and Howitt. Numbered 9A–G Logan Place, these houses were completed in 1980 and given an Environmental Award by Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council in 1981. (fn. 368)

The numbers 3–8 Logan Place are assigned to one building of 1912, a stock-brick block of three main storeys and a tall attic, its otherwise, plain façade relieved by two large bracketed wooden doorcases. The architect was Gilbert H. Jenkins of Romaine Walker and Jenkins and the builders John Marsland and Sons. (fn. 369) The building originally incorporated a club-house, studios and flats.

The studios which stood to the west of Nos. 3–8 were substantially rebuilt behind their facades in 1961–3 to houses a small experimental studio theatre for the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. The design of the scheme was the result of a collaboration between the actor producer Michael Warre, the stage designer John Terry, and the architect R. W. Hurst of Humphrys Hurst. The theatre is now called the Macowan Theatre after Michael MacOwan, the Principal of LAMDA and the inspiration behind the project. (fn. 370)

Garden Lodge, an irregularly shaped neo-Georgian house standing behind a high brick wall to the west of Logan Mews, was built in 1908–9 for the painter Cecil Rea and his wife, the sculptress Constance Halford. It is an imposing building in which a tall pedimented studio wing with a large bay window on the ground floor has been grafted on to a conventional two-storey neo-Georgian house (Plate 116a). Among the features of its grounds is an open loggia on the inside of the wall to Logan Place. Rea's architect was the obscure Ernest William Marshall (1868–1937) who designed No. 20 South End (see page 54), a maternity hospital in Commercial Road and several small houses, chiefly in Surrey. The builders were M. Calnan and Son of Commercial Road. Rea lived at Garden Lodge until his death in 1935, and his widow continued to reside there until 1938. Latterly the house was occupied by Peter Wilson, the Chairman of Sotheby's. (fn. 371)