Cedar Court

Details

TQ 29 SE THE DRIVE
(West side)

31/6/10327 Cedar Court

II

Block of 12 flats, built to appear as a country house. Dated 1912. Designed by Taylor and Huggins for the Brent Garden Village Society.
MATERIALS: pinkish-purple brick in Flemish bond with red brick bands and flat arches to windows, and ashlar architraves to entrances and the window above each; rear of stock brick. Timber balconies. Hipped mansard tiled roofs with corniced brick stacks, hipped dormers and projecting modillion eaves cornice with central segmental pediment.
PLAN: L-shaped plan of 2 matching wings.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attic. Each wing of symmetrical design. 5 bays, the outer bays projecting with 2-storey canted bay windows and projecting central entrance bay. Central entrances each have a moulded stone doorcase with console-bracketed hood, part-glazed door with leaded coloured glass and leaded overlight. Above each entrance a 2-light casement window with stained glass and keyed hood mould which on the main front contains a datestone, 1912. Windows are 12-pane sashes on ground and 1st floors, small-pane casements to attics; small-pane French windows opening on to decorative balconies to recessed bays on 1st floor and outer bays of attic. Decorative hoppers to rainwater pipes. Wings are linked by the 3-bay return of the NW wing. The rear takes the form of 3 storeys, each wing with recessed central bay having replacement (1968) balcony and entrances to 2 flats. Gauged brick flat arches to recessed, horned sashes.
INTERIOR: retains many contemporary features including decorative iron balustrades to concrete stairs, terrazzo hall floors, part-glazed entrance doors with leaded coloured glass and leaded overlights; inside flats, panelled doors, ceiling mouldings, fitted kitchen dressers and cupboards and carved timber chimneypieces with cast-iron grates having decoratively tiled cheeks.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the flats were constructed on part of one of the sunken kitchen gardens of Brent Lodge, an early nineteenth century house subsequently demolished. The rendered brick retaining wall and raised terrace abutting the north wing is included in the listing.
HISTORY: this block of flats was one of the few buildings to be erected by the Brent Garden Village Society, established in 1910 to provide co-operative housing following the example of Letchworth Garden City. The promoter, Alice Melvin, had worked at Letchworth, and in 1910 published an ambitious plan for the redevelopment of the 26-acre Brent Lodge estate. The early C19 house was to be retained to provide community facilities and a central dining hall. Little of the plan was implemented. Mrs Melvin withdrew from the Society in 1911, but Cedar Court (built the following year) reflects her ideals in that it had pantry/sculleries rather than full kitchens to encourage the communal use of the dining room in Brent Lodge. After World War I, much of the remaining land was sold to developers, and the management of Cedar Court was reorganised as a private company, owned by the residents. Brent Lodge itself was bequeathed to Finchley UDC, and was demolished in 1962. Cedar Court survives virtually intact, and is comparable with better-known co-operative flats at Letchworth, N Herts (Homesgarth, 1911) and at Hampstead Garden Suburb (Waterlow Court, 1909-10).
(SOURCES: Town Planning Review: 1 (4) : Jan 1911: Pearson, Lynn F, The Architectural and Social History of Co-operative Living, London and New York, Macmillan and St Martin's Press, 1988 English Heritage Historians' Report: unpublished, 1990)



Listing NGR: TQ2524891454

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

469204

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pearson, L F, The Architectural and Social History of Cooperative Living, (1988)

End of official list entry

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