5, Gainsborough Gardens

Detached villa, built in 1893 by CB King, a local builder, as part of the speculative development of Gainsborough Gardens between 1882 and 1895.

The building is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with tile-hung upper floor featuring alternating bands of plain and fish-scale tiles. It has a plain-tile hipped roof and an ogival lead roof to the corner bay, with red brick dressings and timber windows throughout.

Roughly square in plan with an axial hallway, the house is built on a corner site. A small canted bay at the south-west angle rises through two storeys and is topped with an ogival lead roof and tall finial, serving as a visual pivot for the building. There is a single-storey square bay at the north-east angle and a two-storey canted bay to the south-east elevation.

The exterior is a striking design in the Vernacular Revival tradition but looking forward to neo-Georgian symmetry. Two storeys with attics, the entrance front is near symmetrical, with the entrance bay set forward slightly to balance the canted corner bay and chimney to the right, which is also set forward. A replaced panelled door sits in a plain architrave between narrow vertical side lights continuing to the overlight. Above is a shallow curved canopy under a rectangular three-light overlight framed by vertical moulded stone panels. On either side are horned sashes under flat rubbed red brick arches, with the upper sash small-paned; the canted bay has similar narrow vertical sashes. Sills rest on a continuous cill band above a continuous chamfered plinth. A moulded brick shield adorns the ground-floor level of the chimney breast. The upper floor is matched by similarly-sized sashes. A continuous coved cornice runs round the building. A half-hipped two-light dormer flanks the entrance bay, flanked by tall rectangular brick stacks, each with a moulded vertical strip and collar. The canted corner bay is similarly treated, with an ogival leaded roof and tall finial. The north elevation has a square flat-roofed bay, possibly added, to the left of a single sash window, with coloured glass in the bay. At first-floor level are a pair of similar sashes. A gabled two-light dormer with sashes has tile-hung flanks and a pebble-dash-rendered gable with moulded cornice. The south elevation of two bays features a broad canted bay with flat roof and a single sash to each face, with a single sash to both floors to the right. Above are a pair of half-hipped dormers, each with tile-hung flanks.

Internally, a wide entrance hall leads to the stair at the rear. The open-well stair has plain string ends, turned newel and balusters (two per tread) and a plain moulded timber rail. The drawing room features a fine chimneypiece and overmantel in stained wood, with a coved overmantel containing a mirror flanked by marquetry panels of trees and a marquetry foliate frieze running above the fireplace. The dining room has a late-19th-century chimneypiece with Art Nouveau-inspired mouldings, probably replaced. All rooms have moulded cornices, plain ceilings, and four-panel doors.

Gainsborough Gardens was laid out between 1882 and 1895 on land belonging to the Wells and Campden Charity Trust. Plots were developed speculatively under the close scrutiny of the Trust and their Surveyor HS Legg. The development adopted the newly-heralded ethos shown at Bedford Park Chiswick, developed from 1875, where different styles of building cohere informally in a planned, leafy environment. EJ May, recently appointed as principal architect at Bedford Park, designed the first buildings, Nos. 3 and 4 Gainsborough Gardens, in 1884. Both architecturally and historically, this was a significant step in changing attitudes towards the emerging suburbs.

This development occurred against the background of steps to limit expansion onto Hampstead Heath and the preservation of Parliament Hill Fields, an achievement attributed to CE Maurice who built and lived at No. 9A. He was married to the sister of Octavia Hill, philanthropist and founder of the National Trust. The history of Gainsborough Gardens is prominent in the history of the protection of open spaces, particularly in Hampstead, where the seeds of national awareness were sown. The whole scheme and individual houses are well documented, giving an important record of the development of the Gardens.

Charles B King, who designed this house and possibly altered it, was a local builder who had already built significant houses creating the streets to the north and west of Gainsborough Gardens. He also built Nos. 9 and 10 Gainsborough Gardens in 1895. The style of building progresses from the earliest house by EJ May (1884) in Arts and Crafts manner, through Legg's eclectic vernacular revival work of 1885-8 (Nos. 6, 7 and 8 and the Lodge), to that of Horace Field, proponent of the neo-Georgian manner, seen in Nos. 11-13 and 14. King's work sits neatly in the middle of this progression.