40 Addison Road London W14 Heritage Statement

90 Pages·2015·2.96 MB·English

40 Addison Road
London W14
Heritage Statement
March 2015
Built Heritage
Consultancy

40 Addison Road
London W14
Heritage Statement
March 2015
Contents
1.0 Introduction 1
2.0 Understanding 2
3.0 Significance 59
4.0 Policies and Guidance 68
5.0 Assessment of the Proposals 76
6.0 Conclusion 81
7.0 Sources 83
Appendix: Listed building description 84
© Built Heritage Consultancy 2014
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1.0 Introduction
40 Addison Road is a Grade II listed villa on the former Holland Park Estate, built around 1849 and
altered at various points in the 19th and 20th centuries. The present owners wish to renovate
the house as a family home and remove some of the more modern elements. Pre-application
discussions with officers of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea identified that there
was a need to understand in detail the historical evolution of the building and the significance
of its present fabric, before the impact of the proposals could be judged. Consequently the
Built Heritage Consultancy were commissioned to prepare a Heritage Statement, to assess
the building’s heritage value and evaluate the suitability of the proposals.
Following further investigations (including specialist paint analysis) and opening up work at
the property, this Statement has been revised to incorporate new understanding regarding
some of the internal elements of the property as well as additional works proposed at roof level.
A separate schedule of skirtings and cornices has also been prepared. This will accompany an
application for listed building consent.
This report summarises our research and sets out the history and significance of the listed
building, as well as considering the impact of the proposals in the light of applicable national
and local authority heritage policies.
Paragraph 128 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF, 2012) requires applicants to:
describe the significance of any heritage assets affected, including any contribution made by
their setting. The level of detail should be proportionate to the assets’ importance and no more
than is sufficient to understand the potential impact of the proposal on their significance.
This Heritage Statement meets these requirements at an appropriate level of detail.
The initial report was prepared by Lucy Denton, Anthony Hoyte and James Weeks, following
primary and secondary research and a site visit made in November 2014. The report has since
been revised following further site visits by Robert Bevan and James Weeks in January and
February 2015.
40 Addison Road, London W14: Heritage Statement 1
2.0 Understanding
2.1 History of the neighbourhood
2.1.1 Development of the Holland Park Estate
Kensington in the 17th century was a bucolic area of open fields and show-houses of the
aristocracy, one of the most important of which was Holland House (originally known as Cope
Castle), built in 1605 for Sir Walter Cope and designed by architect John Thorpe. Cope had
purchased the manor of West Town, the old name for this part of the Borough, and ‘having
acquired the manor of Abbots’ Kensington by a grant’ from Queen Elizabeth I, also bought the
manor of Earl’s Court from the Earl and Countess of Argyle in 16101.
Originally covering 500 acres of rural land and park which extended south to the Fulham
Road, the Holland Estate’s boundary at the time of the survey of 1694 terminated at the
Kensington Turnpike Road (the High Street). Its neighbours were equally prestigious, and
included Campden House built for the merchant Sir Baptist Hicks in 1629, and Nottingham
House, redesigned by Christopher Wren for the Earl of Nottingham and purchased in 1689
by William of Orange to become Kensington Palace. Holland House passed to the Edwardes
family in 1721; and then to Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, in 1768.
‘Estate developments played a big part in the transformation of Kensington from rural parish
to metropolitan borough’3, the catalyst of which was arguably the construction of Kensington
Square in 1685, even predating the arrival of the Court, and which progressively led westwards
along the Turnpike (High Street), with rows of houses consuming green fields and cart tracks
so that by the mid-19th century, Kensington’s character had been transformed. The elevated
Thomas Milne’s Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster… laid down from a trigonometrical
survey taken in the years 1795-1799: Addison Road is rural parkland to the left of centre. (British
Library, Maps. Crace XIX 28)
2 40 Addison Road, London W14: Heritage Statement
position of its early residents gave the area ‘a social cachet which it has retained ever since’4. In
1901, Kensington had eighty servants per one hundred families, compared with Westminster
with sixty five and Marylebone with fifty one.5
The Holland Park Estate exemplifies the speculative developments undertaken by London’s
aristocratic landlords in the first two thirds of the 19th century, following John Nash’s
outstanding Regent’s Park and Street scheme that pioneered the highest standards in
architectural virtuosity, uniformity and large-scale planning. The housing development at
Holland Park is more piecemeal and less coherent, as building leases were granted by Lord
Holland bit by bit rather than in large swathes. Its status did not preclude it from suffering the
ups and downs of the economy: the Stock Market crashed in 1825 which ‘led immediately
to yet another rash of bankruptcies among builders and building slowed to a trickle’6, and
although there was an upturn in 1836, this ‘boom also lasted for roughly a decade, to end in
another financial crisis in 1847’7.
Addison Road, which ‘takes its name from Joseph Addison… was begun in the 1820s’8 at
a time when the Holland Estate was facing financial difficulty, exacerbated by a pay-out to
Lord Kensington of £4,000. Its development was required, perhaps reluctantly and especially
so by Lady Holland9, by the need for Lord Holland to find sources of revenue. ‘An account of
the income and expenditure of all the family estates in 1822 shows that the yearly household
expenses exceeded the revenue received from rents, and there are indications that Lord
Holland thought that letting land for building would bring about a short-term improvement
in his income.’10 Map evidence shows the construction of the Church of St Barnabas to designs
by Lewis Vulliamy took place early on in the development in 1829, followed by houses to
the east of Addison Road. London at the time was nevertheless characterised by swathes of
rural or undeveloped land at its edges which, for better or worse, would be utilised for the
8
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Kensington High Street near Counters Bridge (the area of the later Addison Road); Joseph salway,
1811. (British Library, Kensington Turnpike Trust Drawings, Sheet 15: ‘The first stretch of the toll road
leading into London is dirt rather than paved. Open fields, depicted on both sides of the road, tell of
Kensington’s past as a prosperous rural parish’2.)
40 Addison Road, London W14: Heritage Statement 3
purposes of private enterprises, speculative housing schemes and which, in the age of limited
planning restrictions, meant that architects, builders and investors often built designs which
were distinct and, in some instances, incoherent. ‘The developers of the new London had
considerably less interest in the appearance of their creations than had their predecessors
on the inner London estates’11. Yet despite this, that the builder of No. 40 Addison Road,
Thomas Moore, ended up living in the house in 1851 is perhaps testimony to his faith in his
own construction.
Map of Kensington, 1839, showing the initial development along Addison Road, including St Barnabas
Church and the row of houses opposite No. 40, which is itself yet to be built. (Kensington and Chelsea
Local Studies)
Kensington Tithe Map, 1844; Vassall Cottages (nos 36-39) are extant, while No. 40 is yet to be built on
plot 164. (Kensington and Chelsea Local Studies)
4 40 Addison Road, London W14: Heritage Statement
Whitbread’s New Plan of London, 1853. (Harvard University)
Stanford’s Map of London, 1864
40 Addison Road, London W14: Heritage Statement 5
2.1.2 19th and 20th century changes
Charles Booth’s comments on Addison Road describe its northern section as a ‘wide road.
Large detached double fronted houses, 3 st. and basement. Standing in own grounds…
South of Melbury Road, the road is not so good. Terrace houses. Yellow north of Melbury
Road, & Red to south’12 - thus it remained middle class by 1898. Map evidence portraying the
evolution of the environment throughout the 19th century shows a gradual urbanisation as
remaining areas of open land were built over, including Nos. 64-88 Addison Road by James
Hall, and the construction of housing schemes on the land between the railway and Addison
Road by 1875, but it was not until the 20th century that Addison Road saw any considerable
character change.
Addison Road was noted for its ‘distinguished inhabitants [including]… David Lloyd George,
who lived at No. 2, 1928-1936’13, although modern apartment blocks have since taken the
place of some of the original speculative schemes of the early to mid-19th century (including
Nos. 32-35 in 1950). One of the first 20th century blocks to be built was Oakwood Court on
the site of The Moats, the original fishponds of Holland House. The ‘Holland Estate has been
further reduced in size by the sale of the few remaining freeholds to the west of Addison Road’;
further developments include Ilchester Place of 1928, and Abbotsbury Road. Holland House
was severely damaged by bombing during the Blitz, its surviving west wing and grounds
subsequently sold by Lord Ilchester to the London County Council for use as a park.
Considerable redevelopment which took place in the 1950s and 1960s has restyled the
environment in proximity to No. 40 Addison Road with the demolition of 19th century villas to
the east side of the road, now replaced with modern buildings. The house is also overlooked
Addison Road, circa 1892. No. 40 is located beyond the left edge of this view. (Kensington and Chelsea
Local Studies)
6 40 Addison Road, London W14: Heritage Statement