1/1A-5/5A Old St Andrew's Mansions

Details

TQ 28 NW
935/2/10046

OLD CHURCH LANE
1/1A-5/5A Old St Andrew's Mansions

GV
II

Block of ten flats. 1936 by Ernest George Trobridge. Brick, with render - particularly to upper stories and gables; some half timbering, especially to .bays and gables. Tiled roofs with hips and gables, and with extraordinary stacks, characteristic of Trobridge's idiosyncratic style. Each pair of two flats treated as a distinctive house in irregular picturesque composition, but with external stairs leading to the upper flats. EXTERIOR: All the flats have opening casement windows under latticed toplights, in timber frames, except those to Nos. 4 and 5 which have been renewed and are not in keeping. Leaded lozenge glazing to all the lights of No.4a, but this must always have been unusual. The main four-light windows are set in square bays, but their staggered grouping is irregular, and punctuated by flourishes of idiosyncratic brickwork, particularly to the stacks and staircases balustrades. All gables have decorated timber barge boards. Prominent steps to No.1a. Nos.2, 2a, 3 and 3a share a most elaborate grouped chimney, their three flues linked high above eaves level. Arch between Nos. 3/3a and 4/4a, through which Nos. 3 and 4 are entered, surmounted by the curved stairs with machicolated brick balustrading leading to the upper flats. Entry to Nos 5/5a from side, the projecting staircase having a stepped balustrade and culminating in open porch under timber gable whose partial glazing has leaded lights. Original panelled doors with small timber lights. INTERIORS not inspected, but understood to retain panelling to living rooms, with picture rail and deep frieze and ceiling cove above. Doors lined in the same timber. The other rooms with coved ceilings and bedroom with picture rail. Included as the best surviving flats by E G Trobridge, an eccentric local architect whose limited surviving works are concentrated in the Kingsbury area where he lived. His own house in Slough Lane is already listed, and it was with a series of timber-framed houses that he came to attention in the 1920s, for he developed a method of using unseasoned timber and unskilled ex-servicemen to build cheap yet charismatic homes for heroes. In the 1930s he went on to build flats, of brick but again with quirky detailing, of which only Nos.1/1a- 12/12a St Andrew's Mansions survive in listable condition. The detailing is inspired by Trobridge's devout Swedenborgian beliefs, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) proposed a system of "correspondence" whereby worldly, spiritual and divine ideas could be related together. Trobridge wrote in 1909 that 'the philosophy of Swedenborg affects every detail of every structure ... the doctrine of degrees enables one to divide each problem into end, cause and effect.' The effect on his work was the idiosyncratic expression of every chimney, staircase and external detail, while his understanding of timber enriched otherwise humble interiors. The result is to make his artisan rented housing quite remarkable.
Source
Oxford Brookes University, Ernest George Trobridge, Architect Extraordinary , 1982.

Listing NGR: TQ2062386778

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

472858

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Smith, G, Ernest George Trobridge Architect Extraordinary, (1982)

End of official list entry

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