Details
CROMER
892/0/10028 VICARAGE ROAD
03-SEP-07 2A
NORWICH ROAD
8-18
II
Also Known As: St Margaret's Terrace, NORWICH ROAD
Terrace of 6 houses (No.18 now divided horizontally as No.18 and No.2A Vicarage Road). 1884-5. By E.J.May for the Bond Cabbell family of Cromer Hall. Red brick with plain tile roof.
EXTERIOR:
Queen Anne Revival style with attic gables facing, and with curving Dutch gables to the two central houses, which are slightly recessed behind the others. 2 storeys and attic. Various tall brick stacks. At first floor there is, in all, a 12-window range. Each house has a 2-storey canted bay window with tile-hung panels between floors and with a single sash window to the side, except for the left end where the bay is square and canted out on the corner. Windows are mainly 4/1 sashes though No.18 has UPVC replacements. The facing gables have mainly triple 4/4 sashes to the outer 4 houses, double to the central 2. There are flat-roofed dormers in between the outer double gables and the inner. The entrances have round brick arches and part-glazed doors within, except No.18. That to No.8 on the right end is contained within a porch on the gable end. Rears have wings with tall mansard type half-hipped gables, French windows, 6/6 sashes and tile-hung attics with paired 4/4 sashes.
Attached to the rear are Nos. 9 and 11 St.Margaret's Lane which appear not to be part of the Terrace and which are not included.
INTERIOR:
Interiors of Nos. 8,10,16 and 18 (which is a 1st floor and attic maisonette above No 2A) inspected only. All have dog-leg staircases with turned newels and balusters. The houses also retain a variety of fireplaces of 3 main designs: A reception room design with eared wooden surround and a shelf on brackets above a tiled surround and cast-iron grate. The tiles to the one in No.16 are in a Japanese style and the unusual grate with has a sunflower in a concave back. That in No.10 has blue and white tiles and a similar grate, and that in No.18 is without the shelf. The second design has a plain surround with a shelf on brackets and a curved top to the grate; those in Nos. 8, 16 with a boarded front and those in No.10 without a shelf. The third has a cast-iron surround with pilasters, volutes, a central panel with 8-point star and curved top to the grate (in Nos. 8, 10, 16 and 18). This uniformity of designs suggests the fitting out of the houses was completed as part of the overall project. There are also 4-panel doors and moulded cornices and skirtings.
HISTORY:
Having worked for Eden Nesfield and Norman Shaw, Edward John May (1853-1941) became architect to the Bedford Park estate in London after Shaw, who had begun as the architect in 1877 and resigned in 1879, had recommended May as his successor. May lived on the estate and designed a number of houses there in the early 1880's(q.v.). This innovative estate was in the vanguard of the 'Queen Anne' movement in London with many families of artists writers and 'progressives' living there. At the same time Cromer was becoming extremely fashionable as a seaside resort and May came to the attention of the Bond Cabell family who were planning to develop some of their land for housing from the late 1870's. Documents of 1884-5 mention May as the architect to the Cromer Hall estate and include a reference in the records of Cromer UDC for 1/9/1884 to a letter from Mr May architect to Cromer Hall estate regarding the proposed drainage of St.Margaret's Terrace, 'now being built for the Estate'. He thus designed this terrace at the same time or only just after he was designing houses in Bedford Park and there are both similarities to them and innovations in this terrace. May went on to design, a year or two later, a large house in nearby Overstrand Road for the Barclay family (Sutherland House q.v.).
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION:
A finely designed terrace of brick houses which survives comparatively little altered both outside and in with staircases and many fireplaces intact as well as general room layouts, doors and cornices. The terrace was designed by E.J.May, one of the leading architects of the Queen Anne movement at the same time as he was designing similar terraces in Bedford Park, London, well-known for its significance for this movement (e.g. listed houses in Marlborough Crescent, South Parade, Queen Anne's Grove and The Orchard).
Sources.
Mark Girouard, Sweetness and Light, the 'Queen Anne' Movement 1860-1900, Oxford, 1977, Ch.7 and 8 and passim.
Information from Cromer Preservation Society.
