|
Arundel
Gardens (which lies between Ladbroke Grove and Kensington Park Road) was
built towards the end of the development of the Ladbroke Estate, in the
early 1860s. The normal pattern of development was for builders or
developers to take building leases of parcels of land, on which they would
be contracted to build a certain number of houses. They had to pay a
ground rent to the landowner, but were granted 99-year leases of the
houses that they built. So it was with Arundel Gardens.
By the 1850s, the Ladbroke family was beginning to sell off freehold
parcels of undeveloped land, one of which consisted of the land between
the south side of Arundel Gardens and the north side of Ladbroke Gardens.
This was acquired in 1852 by Richard Roy, a solicitor who had already been
involved in building speculation in Cheltenham. He appears to have done
nothing with the Arundel Gardens part of his land until 1862-3, when
building leases were granted for the houses on the south side (numbers
1-47). Around the same time, leases were granted to three other builders
to build houses on the north side.
As so often on the Ladbroke estate, at the end of both the south and north
terraces houses were constructed to face onto the streets round the
corner, thus making a tidy end to the terrace. So numbers 1 and 3; and 2,
4 and 6 are in Kensington Park Road and numbers 50 (Cambridge House) and
52 (Arundel House) are in Ladbroke Grove.
The Greater London Council’s Survey of London (published in 1963)
is less than complimentary about Arundel Gardens, which it sees as
representing a marked decline from the elegance of earlier parts of the
Ladbroke Estate. The street is described as consisting of “dull four-story
ranges, that on the north side being faced with stucco and that on the
south side being of stock brick with coarse flamboyant stucco
enrichments”. Nevertheless, the uniformity of its terraces gives the
street a certain grandeur; as does its alignment towards a vista of the
handsome central houses of Kensington Park Terrace North. And the houses
on both sides of Arundel Gardens back onto attractive communal gardens
typical of the Ladbroke Estate.
Little has been altered over the years. Numbers 43-47 (on the corner of
Ladbroke Grove) were demolished and replaced by a modern block of flats;
and most buildings have had extra mansard stories added. Some of the
cornices have been lost and a few of the houses on the south side have had
their brickwork painted over. But otherwise the terraces look much as they
did 140 years ago.
There is more on the history of the street and the communal gardens on the
Arundel and Ladbroke Gardens website at:
www.arundelladbrokegardens.co.uk.
All photographs are the copyright of Thomas Erskine and were taken
between 2004 and 2007.
|
