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CHEPSTOW PLACE |
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| 36 - 44 CHEPSTOW PLACE,
LONDON W 2 [Extract from Architect's Design Statement] |
| THE SITE The site is located on the west side of Chepstow Place, and comprises five 3-storey terraced houses. Nos. 36-44 originally formed part of a continuous terrace of seventeen houses along the west side of Chepstow Place, although they now read as a terrace in their own right following bomb damage during World War II to Nos. 30-32. The front elevations of the properties, in common with many houses in the locality of similar age, have suffered substantial damage and loss to their decorative features and the main parapet wall that originally united the terrace. Whilst the physical mass of the terrace remains, the sense of unity, continuity and of urban presence that is essential to this architectural period has been lost. |
| THE HISTORY OF THE SITE Chepstow Place was laid out on land owned by James Weller Ladbroke of Petworth, Sussex by the civil engineer W H Jenkins under an agreement he signed with Ladbroke for the redevelopment of the whole of Ladbroke's Kensington holding of 28 acres. Jenkins owned property in Hereford, the surrounding area from which he derived the use of Chepstow, Pembridge, Ledbury and Denbigh as names for the new streets he formed in this part of Kensington. Most likely, this section of the Ladbroke estate was laid out between 1840 and 1844. The new houses were the first in Kensington to be built under public regulation following the Metropolitan Building Act of 1844, which required the houses to be built of "sound bricks and Baltic timber". It is known that an application to build sewers for the new estate was approved in 1847. Following this, and in common with much of the development of London at this time, parcels of land were then leased off to "building speculators". For Chepstow Place, the Survey of London records that leases were granted to the following: Nos. 2-8 (even): T W Budd. Solicitor, of Bedford Row, to James Hall, builder 1850 Nos.10-44 (even): About to be built in 1850 by John Maidlow, builder, of St. John's Wood. Nos. 10, 12, 30-34 now demolished Nos. 46: Executors of Robert Hall to Francis Radford the Younger, builder. 1852 Francis Radford the Younger, the builder of no. 46, along with his elder brother, distinguished himself in the area from 1848 onwards with the construction of very high quality houses in Dawson Place, Pembridge Gardens and Pembridge Square, many of which are now listed Grade II. It is thought that John Radford, the builder of Nos. 10-44, together with other family members, was also responsible for building parts of Pembridge Crescent and Chepstow Crescent. Chepstow Place pre-dates both Chepstow Road and Pembridge Square, the latter being laid out between 1856 and 1864. This part of the west side of Chepstow Place was clearly built as a continuous terrace of seventeen houses of three storeys each. The terrace is articulated by bringing forward groups of two houses and leaving three slightly set back on what appears to be a 2-3-2-3-2-3-2 pattern, although the demolition of five of the properties makes it difficult to verify this pattern. The corners created by these offsets are formed of dentils that reflect the corner details found on the projecting bays and porches throughout the terrace. The original dentils that define the projection of the end houses to the north can still be seen on Nos. 42 and 44. Part of the central section of the terrace (Nos. 30, 32 and 34) was destroyed by a bomb in the Second World. These have been rebuilt in a utilitarian style characteristic of the immediate post-war period. The rebuilt houses are a storey lower than their neighbours. No. 36 adjacent was rebuilt around the same time, but in a pared down historic style to that found in the original properties along the terrace. No. 40 indicates the original integrated style of the terrace with a moulded cornice at the second floor soffite, supported by a series of brackets together with highly moulded dentils to all the projecting corners to the bay and the porch. There are also highly decorative stucco architraves to the window openings. The roofline to the section of terrace between Nos. 36 and 44 comprises a continuous low rendered parapet wall above the cornice, broken by a series of small sections of isolated rendered panels projecting above the parapet. These panels appear to be the remnant of the original roofline of the front of the terrace, which was likely to have consisted of turned plaster bottles set out between the plain render panels, the latter acting to define the party walls between the properties. Such a design for the top of a building or terrace is characteristic of the Italianate detailing of this period and can be still be seen to good effect on No. 46. There would have been a continuous profiled rendered coping linking the rendered panels and the sections of bottles; the coping, being the final architectural element at the top of each house, would have served to reinforce the primacy of the terrace over the individual house. The original height of the overall parapet wall to the whole of the original terrace is indicated in Nos. 24 to 28 where the original bottles have now been replaced with flat panels of rendered brickwork for the entire length of that section of terrace. In contrast, the current skyline to Nos. 36-42 is slightly lower and it is more broken, and lacks the continuity of the section of terrace from No. 28 northwards. There has therefore been much fragmentation of the original architectural detail and the reconstruction of Nos. 30 to 34 in a modern idiom and at a lower level means that the original single terrace that ran from Nos. 12 to 44 now reads as a series of three linked terraces of differing character and appearance. No. 46 is not a listed building but is defined in the Pembridge Conservation Area Policy Statement as being considered of equal interest to buildings on the Statutory List. It does not form part of the terrace to the north and is clearly a stand-alone villa style house. The building is an elegant Palladian style villa of cuboid proportions; that is to say, the elevation of the building approximately equates to the depth of the building. |
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THE PROPOSAL FOR NEW
MANSARDS AND IMPROVEMENTS TO THE ELEVATIONS |
| Reproduced with the
permission of Alan Power Architects July 2003 |