27, LEIGHTON ROAD

Reasons for Designation

No. 27 Leighton Road is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Historic and Architectural Interest: a house of c1828 where much of the original plan and fabric survives; * Group Value: as part of a small cluster of late Georgian suburban houses, a reminder of Kentish Town's village character in the early C19, before the suburb was subsumed into the capital from the 1850s.

Details

798-1/0/10385 LEIGHTON ROAD 27-MAY-10 Kentish Town 27

GV II Terraced house, c1828, with alterations of 1870 and later.

EXTERIOR: No. 27 Leighton Road is a two-storey, brick house of c1828, stuccoed to the front, with a valley roof concealed behind a raised parapet with moulded cornice. The two bay house has its eastern bay set back, this with the original six-panel timber door in a moulded surround studded with small rosettes. The fanlight has elongated oval glazing bars and the door's architrave has console brackets, as does that to the ground-floor sash window. The upper storey windows have plainer moulded surrounds. The timber sash windows are modern replacements closely matching the originals; two original windows survive to the rear (to the first floor back room and a horizontal sliding sash overlooking the yard in the kitchen). The house was extended to the rear in 1870, and then again in the C20. The 1870 first floor extension is supported on cast-iron columns where it jetties slightly over the ground floor. They create a covered passageway leading from a new door, added in 1870, giving direct access from the hall to the garden. The C20 extensions to the rear are single storey: leading off the sitting room with French windows and to the kitchen. The railings to the front garden are original, as are the garden walls to the north and west.

INTERIOR: the house retains much of its original arrangement of rooms. In the hall, the wide open-well stair, with its plain stick balusters and moulded handrail survives. The area underneath it has been panelled to create an alcove, probably in the C19. Not visible, as it is beneath later plaster and paint, there is also a chimney flue but no fireplace. The reception rooms off the hall have cornices, possibly the originals, but the original fireplaces have been removed. The front room window retains its framing joinery and may contain an original shutter beneath the window. The kitchen to the rear has a mantelshelf and flue where the range once stood, dating to the 1870s, and an original horizontal sliding shutter with heart-shaped perforations. The first floor retains one original fireplace with paterae and fluting, in the back room, and there is an Edwardian fireplace in the front room which also has an original built-in cupboard in an alcove. The landing has been partitioned off to create an additional bedroom, probably in the C19 and this simple timber partitioning survives. The 1870 extension to the rear has been partially subdivided with timber partitioning and doors dating to the 1920s. It nonetheless retains its cornice, ceiling, shutters and a grand marble fireplace. There are two narrow service cupboards with original joinery where the 1870 extension joins the original house and a number of original doors throughout the house.

HISTORY: Leighton Road was developed in the early C19, known first as Evans Place, then Gloucester Place (from c1816), before assuming its current name in the 1860s. In 1804 it was but a pathway leading from Kentish Town to Islington, with a stile at the eastern end and a bowling green on its north side near where No. 27 Leighton Road now stands; this was probably for patrons of the Assembly House inn located at the corner of Kentish Town Road. At this time the land was owned by one Joshua Prole Torriano. From the 1820s, small freehold plots were sold off for development, each sufficient for one or two houses only. No. 27 Leighton Road was built in c1828 and was originally in the middle of the terrace, with two houses abutting it to the west; these were demolished in the C20. No. 27 Leighton Road appears on an 1834 map of the area and on subsequent Ordnance Survey maps.

The residents of No. 27 Leighton Road from c1828 were a Mr Crowe (the original freeholder and builder), and then an architect with family and servants. By 1861, the owner was a Mr Pike, with his family but no servants. Pike made various changes to the house in 1870, described below, and his story is vividly told in Gillian Tindall's book, "The Fields Beneath: the History of One London Village", published in 1977.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: No. 27 Leighton Road is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Historic and Architectural Interest: a house of c1828 where much of the original plan and fabric survives; * Group Value: as part of a small cluster of late Georgian suburban houses, a reminder of Kentish Town's village character in the early C19, before the suburb was subsumed into the capital from the 1850s.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

507768

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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