6/6A-7/7A Old St Andrew's Mansions

Details

TQ 28 NW
935/2/10045

OLD CHURCH LANE
(East side )
6/6a-7/7a Old St Andrew's Mansions

GV
II

Two pairs of flats. 1936 by Ernest George Trobridge. Brick, with render - particularly to first floor and sides, with timbering and barge boards to gables. Tiled roofs. A symmetrical pair, of two stories and resembling a conventional semi-detached pair of houses, save for the extraordinary central staircase leading from the centre of the main elevation to the first floor flats, which are entered under the dramatic central brick stack, characteristic of Trobridge's idiosyncratic style. EXTERIOR: All the flats have opening casement windows under latticed toplights, in timber frames, of two or three bays in a symmetrical composition. The smaller side bays jettied under their own timber gables. Original panelled doors with small timber lights to ground floor. The external stair is for once straight, set between brick balustrades and with a surround of stepped brickwork laid in the manner of tiling without coursing but with crow-steps. Canted brick gables with square tops set at an angle to the rest. 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 part of the best surviving group of 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: TQ2059886746

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

472860

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

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

End of official list entry

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