Finella

TL 4458 CAMBRIDGE QUEEN'S ROAD (West side) 667-/16/10067 Finella

II*

Shown on Ordnance Survey map as Finella East and Finella West. House. c.1840, decorated internally by Raymond McGrath in 1927-29 for Mansfield Forbes. Divided into 8 Fellows' lodgings late C20. Colourwashed brick; slate roof. 2 storeys in 4-window range. South front with 3 canted bay windows to ground floor, fitted with 3-light cross casements, with opening metal panes over the transoms. Panelled parapets. First floor lit through 4 3-light cross casements. Deep fascia board below wide projecting eaves. Hipped roof with 3 gault-brick stacks at irregular intervals on north roof slope. North side with a 2-storey hipped service wing. Principal entrance to east return. INTERIOR. Entrance hall runs east-west to staircase at right angles. Hallway walls clad in aluminium leaf, which extends in square panels into the canted ceiling. At the junction between ceiling and walls is a course of individual triangular laminated glass corbels each side. Over the principal doors are similar, but larger, curved triangular glass corbels grouped in triplets. Doorcases are plain. Concrete floor inlaid with blue serpentine patterns. West end of passageway with groined vault marking foot of staircase and terminal doorway, the doorway decorated with 3 black inlaid strips; the vault with applied gold leaf Walls fitted with laminated glass panels. Staircase with boarded balustrade and a ramped moulded handrail. Ground-floor room to south with central dome to which is applied beaten copper panels enriched with aluminium foil. Upper parts glazed. Projecting black chimneypiece with mirror. West room opens into further room to north through folding doors of beaten copper set within a surround of alternating ebony and copper strips. Rear wing with stick-baluster staircase of c.1840. First-floor passageway lined with black laminated glass. Doorcases and details of c.1840. A significant interior for the history of the Modern Movement. (BOE: Pevsner, N: Cambridgeshire 2nd Edn: Harmondsworth: 1970: 256; Rawle, T: Cambridge Architecture: London: 1993: 62)

Listing NGR: TL4442258025