Reasons for Designation
REASON FOR DESIGNATION DECISION
Nos 9 and 10 Gainsborough Gardens are designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Quality of design and materials
* Survival of internal plan and features of note, particularly No. 9
* Strong group value with other houses in Gainsborough Gardens
* Strong contribution to the overall planning interest of Gainsborough Gardens, with particular importance as a screen building
Details
798-1/0/10308 GAINSBOROUGH GARDENS
23-APR-08 9 AND 10
II
Pair of semi-detached houses, 1895 by CB King, local builder. Built speculatively as part of the development of Gainsborough Gardens. The interior of No. 10 has been refurbished.
MATERIALS: Red brick in Flemish bond with tile-hung upper floor and gables, using alternate bands of plain and fishscale tiles. Plain-tile roofs. Red-brick and moulded timber dressings.
PLAN: Symmetrical pair, each of 2 bays and of 2 storeys, attics and basement. The central bays are gabled above a 2-storey flat-roofed canted bay. The outer bays have shallow porches over the entrance, and half-hipped dormers. There is a transverse central stack and end stacks. At the rear canted bays rise from the basement which is at ground level to first floor. Dormers are flat roofed.
EXTERIOR: Each has a part-glazed, small-paned and fielded panelled door under shallow-pitched tiled porch on moulded brackets supported on brick pilasters. Doors and windows to the brick section are in plain brick openings under cambered red brick arches. Windows in tile hung sections have flat moulded timber cornices. Windows are horned sashes, the upper sash small-paned, except for the gable windows which have a part-glazed door leading onto the balcony and flanked by narrow margin lights. Tall French windows at the rear with small paned upper lights open on to a shallow balcony with cast iron balustrade, that to No. 9 is original. Continuous moulded brick bands, both above the ground-floor windows, and forming a cill band to first-floor windows. Internal brick stacks have moulded collars and caps.
INTERIOR: Both have an open-well stair, part closed string, part open, with plain tread ends, turned newels on square bases, with small drop finials, and turned balusters, two per tread. Doors are of four panels. No. 9 has fine chimneypieces: that in the drawing room has a simple panelled frieze and mantelshelf supported on Ionic columns; that in the dining room is of robust moulded cast iron with tile slips. First-floor chimneypieces are in grey marble with cast-iron fireplaces complete with grates, and floral tiled slips. Upper-floor chimneypieces in No. 10 are similar but possibly introduced later. Both have deep moulded cornices to plain ceilings.
HISTORY: Gainsborough Gardens was laid out between 1882 and 1895 on land belonging to the Wells and Campden Charity Trust. Plots were developed speculatively under the close scrutiny of the Trust and their Surveyor HS Legg. The development adopted the newly-heralded ethos shown at Bedford Park Chiswick, developed from 1875, where different styles of building cohere informally in a planned, leafy environment. EJ May, recently appointed as principal architect at Bedford Park designed the first building, Nos. 3 and 4 Gainsborough Gardens, in 1884. Both architecturally and historically, this was a significant step in changing attitudes towards the emerging suburbs.
This is set against the background of steps to limit expansion onto Hampstead Heath and the preservation of Parliament Hill Fields, an achievement attributed to CE Maurice who built and lived at No. 9A. He was married to the sister of Octavia Hill, philanthropist and founder of the National Trust.
The history of Gainsborough Gardens is prominent in the history of the protection of open spaces, particularly in Hampstead where the seeds of national awareness were sown. The whole scheme and individual houses are well documented, giving an important record of the development of the Gardens. The outcome is a scheme of significant historic and architectural importance and particular aesthetic quality, based on a fine balance between building and open space both of which survive almost intact. Nos. 9 & 10, built in 1895, represent the last phase of building and are contemporary with Nos. 11-13. Materials echo those used throughout the Gardens, but in form they depart from the informality of H S Legg's work to anticipate the formality of Field's neo-Georgian. CB King also built No. 5 Gainsborough Gardens in 1893.
REASON FOR DESIGNATION DECISION
Nos 9 and 10 Gainsborough Gardens is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Quality of design and materials
* Survival of internal plan and features of note, particularly No. 9
* Strong group value with other houses in Gainsborough Gardens
* Strong contribution to the overall planning interest of Gainsborough Gardens, with particular importance as a screen building
SOURCES
London Suburbs, English Heritage, 1999
Gainsborough Gardens Hampstead and the Estate of the Wells and Campden Trust. An account of their development with houses, 1875-1895, David A L Saunders, 1974
Proof of Evidence, Public Inquiry, No 9A Gainsborough Gardens and land Adjacent, London NW3, Victor Belcher, December 2006
