Reasons for Designation
4a and 5 Sloane Street are designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* the Free Classical style is exploited by the architect, FS Chesterton, in a busy composition of ebullient stone dressings, asymmetrical elevations, Renaissance detailing and Mannerist quirks;
* the stone carved doorcases are unusually flamboyant as is the top-heavy stone detailing;
* good use of materials including blue granite shafts to the shop front columns, artificial stone elsewhere on the ground floor and Portland stone on the upper storeys contrasting with the red brick;
* a stylish Art-Nouveau staircase with stained glass windows inside.
Details
249/0/10292 SLOANE STREET
18-SEP-09 4A AND 5
II
Commerical premises with residences above, 1904-7 by Frank Sidney Chesterton for George Cobb, butcher.
EXTERIOR: The building occupies a corner position where Basil Street joins Sloane Street and takes full advantage of the location with its canted corner bay. The red brick building with stone dressings has four storeys plus a Mansard attic, this with slate roof and dormer windows; there are shops on the ground floor and apartments above. The corner has a Mannerist stone doorcase with two carved stone female figures crouching under the weight of the semi-circular hood, with coffered soffit. The figures also appear to support the projecting corner turret rising through two of the building's three upper storeys terminating in a lead domed roof; the final storey of the canted corner bay is a concave quadrant with deep-channelled banded rustication and a niche: another Mannerist quirk. The elevations to Sloane Street and Basil Street are similar, with plentiful Portland stone articulation including banded pilasters, shallow two-storey bay windows with mullions and transoms, plat bands, carved cartouches and niches on the upper storey and a dentil cornice. The elevation to Sloane Street is the larger and sits in part under a tall triangular pediment with a central oculus; paired Ionic columns between the mullion windows in the upper storey continue the theme of top-heavy detailing. The ground floor shops are not without interest too, although that to the section under the pediment is largely modern. The two large shop windows on the corner are set between half-columns with shafts in a blue granite in addition to the square artificial stone pilasters which articulate all of the ground floor. There is a second entrance on Basil Street with a large keystone and carved stone canopy with oeil-de-boeuf window seemingly held in place by putti clutching drapery.
INTERIOR: Only part of the interior was inspected, the communal staircase to the upper floors of No 5. This is a concrete structure with stylish Art-Nouveau iron balustrade and a timber handrail. The stairwell contains a number of leaded stained glass windows in charming Art-Nouveau style floral designs and timber dado-panelling. In the premises now occupying the first floor some of the windows have been incorporated into a modern screen partition. The timber doors with reeded flush panels leading off the landings are original.
HISTORY: The Cobb family butchers originally occupied No 2 Sloane Street but moved into the new building on the corner of Basil Street in 1907. The plans by Chesterton are dated 1904. There were two shops in the new development, the other being let to a tailor at first, then a jeweller and subsequently a milliner. The Post Office Directories of the period also record other tenants at the address, presumably on the upper floors of the building; they included a dressmaker as well as private residents. The Cobb family of butchers traded from No 5 Sloane Street until the 1980s.
Frank Sidney Chesterton, like his cousin the writer GK Chesterton, was from a family of Kensington property owners and surveyors. The family business, founded in 1805, still trades under the name, now as estate agents. Most of FS Chesterton's buildings are in the Kensington area, including the Grade II-listed terrace at 12-54 Horton Street of 1903 and Horton Court, High Street Kensington, of 1906. He also worked on houses on the Norbury Manor Estate in 1904, one of the London County Council's first 'Out-County' estates. Chesterton died from wounds in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: 4a and 5 Sloane Street is listed for the following principal reasons:
* the Free Classical style is exploited by the architect, FS Chesterton, in a busy composition of ebullient stone dressings, asymmetrical elevations, Renaissance detailing and Mannerist quirks;
* the stone carved doorcases are unusually flamboyant as is the top-heavy stone detailing;
* good use of materials including blue granite shafts to the shop front columns, artificial stone elsewhere on the ground floor and Portland stone on the upper storeys contrasting with the red brick;
* a stylish Art-Nouveau staircase with stained glass windows inside.
