7 And 8, Gainsborough Gardens

Pair of semi-detached houses built in 1888 by Henry Simpson Legg, Surveyor to the Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust, for Thomas Clifford, lessee, as part of the development of Gainsborough Gardens between 1882 and 1895. The houses have since been divided into flats.

The houses are constructed in red brick with rubbed and moulded-brick details, red sandstone dressings, tile-hanging, and pebbledash render to the gables and eaves cornice, with clay tile roofs. Each property comprises two storeys with lower, set-back two-storey side bays, an attic, and basement, arranged in mirror plan with entrance halls and stairs to the rear.

The design is in the Domestic Revival manner. Each house has two bays, with asymmetrical composition unified through symmetrical first-floor fenestration and a coved eaves cornice. The fenestration is varied, comprising sashes (some paired with central mullion), top-hung casements, and French windows to balconies. Basement and ground-floor windows feature keyed cambered arches. Some windows retain decorative iron guardrails. Both houses have timber porches carried on bulbous balusters; the roof to the porch of No. 7 is gabled, while that of No. 8 is single pitched. Panelled front doors have stained-glass lights. A moulded brick cornice runs across the ground floor.

No. 7 features a canted mullion-and-transom bay window at ground floor with a balcony above carrying decorative ironwork. A corresponding balcony at first-floor level is supported on heavy scrolled stone consoles. The property has a set-back four-light dormer with deep cornice decorated with leaf-pattern and a pargetted gable, plus a smaller hipped dormer to the left. No. 8 balances this arrangement with a single large gable set flush with the front elevation, featuring a dentilled cornice and small triangular pediment above the window. The set-back bay of No. 7 is canted; that of No. 8 is square with decorative ironwork to the parapet, each with timber balustraded parapet to the balcony above. Both properties have pitched roofs with overhanging gablets to the side elevations and stacks with deep moulded collars.

The rear elevation reverses the fenestration arrangement of the front. No. 8 has a square bay mullion-and-transom window at ground floor, and a bracketed balcony at first-floor level of No. 7. Ground-floor windows to No. 7 also feature a balcony, with ironwork similar to the front elevation. Both properties have four hipped dormers. A modern single-storey rear extension to No. 8 is not of special interest.

No. 7 was inspected in part only. The plan survives in essence with stairs and major partitions remaining, though the front and rear rooms of the ground floor have been knocked through. Moulded cornices, skirtings, and architraves remain, but doors have been replaced and original chimneypieces removed. No. 8 is more complete, retaining some original chimneypieces (some imported), ceilings, and most joinery. Both houses feature strapwork plaster ceilings to the entrance halls and attractive stairs with arcaded balustrades (that to No. 7 partly boxed-in), matching that of No. 6.

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 Henry Simpson Legg (1830-1906), a local architect and landowner. The development adopted the ethos shown at Bedford Park, Chiswick, developed from 1875, where different styles of building cohere informally in a planned, leafy environment. E.J. May, recently appointed principal architect at Bedford Park, designed the first building, Nos. 3 and 4 Gainsborough Gardens, in 1884. Both architecturally and historically, this represented a significant step in changing attitudes towards the emerging suburbs, set against efforts to limit expansion onto Hampstead Heath and the preservation of Parliament Hill Fields, an achievement attributed to C.E. Maurice who built and lived at No. 9A. He was married to the sister of Octavia Hill, philanthropist and founder of the National Trust.

Gainsborough Gardens occupies a prominent position 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, providing an important record of the development of the Gardens. The outcome is a scheme of significant architectural and historic interest with particular aesthetic quality, based on a fine balance between building and open space, both of which survive almost intact.

Nos. 7 and 8, together with No. 6, were designed as a group by Henry Legg and built by Thomas Clifford. No. 8 was occupied by the noted Baptist minister F.B. Meyer. From 1913 to 1931 it was the home of Arthur Bolton (1864-1945), architectural historian, architect, and co-founder of the Wren Society, principal of the Architectural Association, and Curator of the Soane Museum. After this it was occupied by Arthur Greenwood MP, known for his anti-appeasement stance in the late 1930s, until his death in 1954.