Tudor wall to rear of 1-7 Phene Street

1-7, Phene Street

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Overview

Brick boundary wall, early C16, rebuilt in the C18 or C19 and in smaller patches in recent years, and possibly with areas of a later second skin on the north side. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1392295
Date first listed:: 05-Nov-2007
List Entry Name:: Tudor wall to rear of 1-7 Phene Street
Statutory Address:: 1-7, Phene Street

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1392295
Date first listed:: 05-Nov-2007
List Entry Name:: Tudor wall to rear of 1-7 Phene Street
Statutory Address 1:: 1-7, Phene Street

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 1-7, Phene Street

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Kensington and Chelsea (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 27334 77801

Reasons for Designation

The boundary wall is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * a significant proportion of this important boundary wall survives, including a large number of Tudor bricks and some infill of the late C18 or early-C19; the north face was not inspected but is known to have been rendered, and perhaps buttressed, in parts; * the wall has special historic interest as a surviving structure relating to Shrewsbury House, one of the great houses that once lined the riverside at Chelsea in the C16; * its claim to antiquity is supported by strong documentary evidence, including a number of historic maps. The wall testifies to the persistence of the plot boundary it marks which is still clearly identifiable on modern maps despite its bisection by Oakley Street; * it has group value with other listed walls nearby forming a remarkable collection of interrelated brick boundary walls.

Details

249/0/10282 PHENE STREET Tudor Wall to rear of 1-7 05-NOV-07

GV II Brick boundary wall, early C16, rebuilt in the C18 or C19 and in smaller patches in recent years, and possibly with areas of a later second skin on the north side.

DESCRIPTION: The brick wall runs in a straight, roughly east-west line for around 38 metres in length. Only the south face was inspected (2007) and although much of the wall was obscured by foliage, sections of brickwork are visible. The bonding patterns are irregular with some rows of headers and others of stretchers. The wall is likely to have been rebuilt in the C18 or C19 and some of the bricks replaced; these may be the blue bricks that are interspersed with the smaller red bricks. The C19 also saw the application of black-ash mortar to sections of the wall. Some of the capping and some sections of the upper courses appear to have been rebuilt in the late C20 and a section in the garden of 43 Oakley Street is entirely early C21 brickwork. There has been insensitive repointing in cement mortar on some sections of the wall. Nonetheless, a significant proportion of C16 bricks survive and there are good stretches of the wall where the brickwork has been largely unaltered since the C18 or early-C19. At its westernmost point the wall abuts the mid-Victorian houses on Oakley Street. At its easternmost point, the wall is tied into the listed north-south former orchard boundary wall. The two walls, although of different heights, are likely to be roughly contemporary as the course they follow is a long-standing boundary. The north-south wall is currently described in the list description as a part of the boundary walls of the manor of Henry VIII. While this is certainly true of its adjoining sections (running to the west and then continuing south), this northernmost section appears to be the boundary to the long orchard and is historically connected to Shrewsbury House.

The north face was not inspected but is known to have been rendered at 1 Phene Street, and there are suggestions the wall might have been buttressed by a later wall on the north side.

HISTORY: The wall marked the boundary of a long rectangular orchard, stretching west to east, which was part of the garden of Shrewsbury House, a early C16 building on the riverside. The orchard was bisected by Oakley Street in the mid-C19, but the distinctive plot shape can still be identified on modern maps to either side of the street; its western section is now the site of Adair House. The boundary wall can be traced on a number of historic maps of the area including James Hamilton's 'Parish of Chelsea' of 1664, the 1706 water supply map of Chelsea, Christopher and John Greenwood's map of London of 1830, Thompson's map of 1836, Edward Standford's 'London and its Suburbs' of 1862 and the Ordnance Survey maps of 1874, 1896 and 1916.

Shrewsbury House is first recorded in the early-mid C16 when it was owned by George, Earl of Shrewsbury, a Privy Councillor to Henry VIII. It is likely that Shrewsbury built or adapted the house after Henry VIII refitted an older manor house on the riverside at Chelsea, on the site of which is now 19-26 Cheyne Walk in 1536. Henry VIII also channelled water via a conduit from Kensington Palace Green to the manor house and a fountain in the Great Garden to the west. The 1703 map which depicts this system shows the pipes reaching the site at what may be a conduit house in the northern stretch of the Shrewsbury House orchard boundary wall and continuing south through the orchard to the manor house. Shrewsbury House was later the home of a Sir Joseph Alston. In the 1706 water supply map the land bounded by the wall is labelled 'Sir Joseph Alston's Orchard', connecting the plot with Shrewsbury House, rather than Henry VIII's manor. The House was used as a paper manufactory by 1792 and was demolished in 1813.

Other remnants of the wall of Shrewsbury House garden are recorded as surviving in the Alfred Beaver's 'Memorials of Old Chelsea' of 1892. He describes Carlyle as observing sections of Tudor wall in his garden and also mentions a further section in the grounds of what is now Adair House. Several of these stretches survive and are listed Grade II.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION: The boundary wall is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons * a significant proportion of this important boundary wall survives, including a large number of Tudor bricks and some infill of the late C18 or early-C19; the north face was not inspected but is known to have been rendered, and perhaps buttressed, in parts; * the wall has special historic interest as a surviving structure relating to Shrewsbury House, one of the great houses that once lined the riverside at Chelsea in the C16; * its claim to antiquity is supported by strong documentary evidence, including a number of historic maps. The wall testifies to the persistence of the plot boundary it marks which is still clearly identifiable on modern maps despite its bisection by Oakley Street; * it has group value with other listed walls nearby forming a remarkable collection of interrelated brick boundary walls.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 504245
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.