Reasons for Designation
Listable at Grade II.
Details
800/0/10141 LANCHESTER ROAD
01-NOV-10 HIGHGATE
49
II
Detached house. Built 1925-6 to the design of Ewan Macpherson of Maple & Co, for Thomas Adie. Builder Messrs Tibbenham of Ipswich.
MATERIALS: Red brick laid in English bond; rendered upper floor; oak joinery; clay tile roof.
PLAN: Originally comprised a central entrance hall with a well stair, WC to the left, lounge to W, dining room to rear, kitchen to E with a separate rear scullery, accessed by a passage at rear of entrance hall. The wall between kitchen and scullery has been removed, and the latter extended to form a conservatory involving the removal of a section of the rear wall, thus forming one long room. Otherwise, the ground-floor plan is essentially as built. W side wing contained a billiard room, that to E a garage (now a kitchen), entered from the side, with service rooms to the rear linked to the scullery. First floor contained five bedrooms, two bathrooms and a WC leading off the central stair landing. The attic contained two bedrooms plus a photographic darkroom. Some upper-floor rooms have been altered by the resiting of partitions.
EXTERIOR: Two storeys with set back one-storey side wings. Main house of 4 bays. Entrance has a pilastered door case with a semi-circular iron fanlight, above which are console brackets supporting the first-floor oriel window, and a ribbed and studded oak door with a small iron grille and door knocker. Upper floor has moulded rendered panels and wall plate, and four oriel windows with arched central light (a motif of the Domestic Revival style introduced by Norman Shaw in the 1870s, derived from Sparrowe's House, Ipswich.) Steep hipped roof with two hipped dormers, deep sprocketed eaves and tall stacks. Side wings are set back with scrolled upswept parapets. All elevations have oak mullion-and-transom windows with leaded lights. The rear elevation is also of four bays, with doors incorporated into the windows of the two western bays. The easternmost bay has a modern conservatory extension.
INTERIOR: Stair hall and ground-floor principal rooms fitted out with lavish, traditonally pegged oak joinery. Entrance hall has half-height square panelling continuing down rear passage, an arched niche in the south-west angle, and chamfered ceiling beams with moulded stops. Oak stair has a closed string, turned balusters and heavy finials. Inner face of entrance door is planked with elaborate iron hinges in the form of ferns. The lounge has a stone chimneypiece with a Tudor arch, carved spandrels and a carved timber lintel; the overmantel has moulded plaster panels inset with coloured and gilded relief decoration with heraldic motifs. A plaster frieze decorated with heraldic beasts runs around the room. Door on W wall has architrave with rope moulding. Former billiard room has a beamed ceiling with heavy moulded axial beams which appear reclaimed and of considerable age, and a stone chimneypiece with a hollow-chamfered Tudor arch and panelled overmantel, flanked by planked cupboards with scrolled hingework. Rear door leading to the garden has fern-pattern hinges. Rear dining room has half-height panelling in limed oak, and a stone chimneypiece with a Tudor arch and carved spandrels. The walls are decorated in naive manner to mimic C17 pargetting, comprising fleurs-de-lys and animals between wavy fluted pilasters and an elaborate floral panel above the chimneypiece. The passageway has a built-in cupboard beneath the stair containing an unusual iron key-rack in the form of a large key. There are some iron light fittings and beaten copper light-switch plates. The former kitchen and scullery have been entirely modernised and are without special interest; the garage is now a living space linked to the main house. The bedrooms are more simply finished, with plaster cornices. SE bedroom has built-in oak furniture. An attic room has a fluted 1930s electric fire surround. Most rooms to ground and first floors have eight-panel doors with iron scrolled handles.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Brick walls and gatepiers, wrought-iron gates; stone steps enclosed by stone walls leading up to house.
HISTORY: Lanchester Road first appears on the 1913 OS map, then without any houses; it was still undeveloped in 1920. Plans were approved by the Borough of Hornsey for a detached house at Lanchester Road, submitted by Thomas Mountford Adie of 38 Collingwood Avenue, Muswell Hill, who came from a family of textile manufacturers in Voe, Shetland Isles. Adie was a shareholder and Director of Maple & Co Ltd, the famous furnishing store in Tottenham Court Road, from 1923-55. The house first appears in Kelly's Directory 1927 under the name 'Symbister' (after a Shetland's village), then one of 19 or so houses in Lanchester Road. Thomas Adie was still living there in 1936, when the house was numbered 27. The architect Ewan Macpherson also designed the new Maples' store in Tottenham Court Road, built 1930 (demolished). Messrs Tibbenham are listed in Kelly's Directory for Ipswich of 1925 as 'furniture manufacturers & builders' decorators, & joinery'.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: No 49 Lanchester Road is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: a striking and pleasingly composed suburban house designed in a late Domestic Revival manner, with high-quality oak joinery.
* Interiors: a remarkably complete suite of rooms with lavish, high-quality oak joinery and fittings, handsome chimneypieces, decorative plasterwork, light fittings, door and window ironmongery and some fine reused timbers, designed by Maple & Co, a leading name in interior furnishings.
