9a, Gainsborough Gardens

Detached house, dated 1891, probably designed by Elijah Hoole for CE Maurice and his wife as part of the Gainsborough Gardens development.

The house displays a two-storey form with attics and basement, built to a rectangular plan with a large gabled bay projecting slightly to the left and a narrow right-hand stair bay. The ground floor is constructed of red brick with yellow limestone lintels. The first floor is rendered with pebbledash and features a rendered sgraffito frieze. The roof is of plain tile with projecting eaves, and a large tile-hung gable with bargeboards enriched in alternating bands of plain and fishscale tiles and moulded bargeboards.

The entrance comprises an enriched pointed arched doorway with a part-glazed door and coloured margin lights beneath a stained-glass fanlight. To the left is a three-light window with stone mullions and lintel, the upper sashes containing lozenge-shaped leaded lights. Above runs a frieze of cinquefoil roundels executed in sgraffito, set within rectangular brick panels. The roundel above the entrance is inscribed "EIRENE COTTAGE 1891". The frieze extends across the front, stopping abruptly at the angles. A corresponding three-light window appears at first-floor level, with a single-light window above the entrance and paired sashes to the right. Under a shallow tile canopy in the gable is a paired sash. All front windows and most rear windows feature lozenge-shaped leaded lights to the upper sashes. Tall enriched brick stacks with moulded caps rise from the roof.

The rear is similarly treated to the front, with pebbledash-rendered upper floor and tile-hung gable. A three-storey canted bay to the right has a tiled roof. The right-hand return features a tile-hung gable to the rear, with internal enriched stacks rising from the roof.

The interior retains an open-well close-string staircase rising from basement to attic, with square chamfered newels having fielded panels to each face and facetted finials. Balusters are rectangular in section and slightly chamfered, with a moulded rail. The stairwell features panelled linings to the basement and stairwell windows with lozenge-pattern leaded glazing with coloured margins.

The drawing room chimneypiece displays reeded flanks, a gadrooned cornice, and a deep frieze with panels enriched with low-relief carved timber figures and foliate scrolls; it may be a compilation. The study chimneypiece has a marquetry frieze of repeated foliate pattern. Neither retains an original fireplace; both may be introduced features. First-floor chimneypieces are of marble, with one retaining a cast-iron fireplace and grate. Cornices throughout have flat shallow mouldings. Doors are typically four-panelled with chamfered rails and muntins. The rear basement plan remains intact. Rear windows have chamfered architraves and retain their shutters. A single-leaf door is original. The entrance hall floor is of polychrome tiles. The basement has been extended beneath the front garden. Despite some alterations, the plan reads well at all floors with sufficient detail surviving in each room.

CE Maurice, who built and lived at No. 9A, was a key protagonist in efforts to limit expansion onto Hampstead Heath and the preservation of Parliament Hill Fields. He was married to the sister of Octavia Hill, the philanthropist and founder of the National Trust. Maurice remained a keen advocate for the protection of open spaces and social welfare until his death in 1927.

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

Elijah Hoole (1837–1912) was a pupil of James Simpson who began his career working on industrial buildings but became well known for philanthropic work, including workers' housing schemes and as architect of Toynbee Hall, Whitechapel, and numerous parochial buildings for the Church of England and the Wesleyan Church. He espoused the ethos of vernacular revival and its architectural methods. He produced for Octavia Hill a private house, Larksfield at Crockham Hill on the Sussex–Kent border, and model cottages at Ranston Street, Marylebone (1886) and in Redcross and Whitecross Gardens, Southwark (1887 and 1890). These buildings bear striking affinity to Eirene Cottage.

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 entire scheme and individual houses are well documented, providing an important record of the Gardens' development. The outcome is a scheme of significant historic and architectural interest with particular aesthetic quality, based on a fine balance between building and open space, both of which survive almost intact.