Bourne Estate (Southern Part); Formerly Union Buildings Estate Nigel House 1-71, Laney House 1-72, Kirkeby House 1-45, Buckridge House 1-30

The Bourne Estate (southern part), formerly known as the Union Buildings Estate, is a housing estate built by the London County Council between 1905 and 1909. It was designed by the LCC Architect's Department, with EH Parkes as chief assistant for the scheme under WE Riley.

The estate comprises four main blocks: Nigel House (1-71), Laney House (1-72), Kirkeby House (1-45), and Buckridge House (1-30), located on Leather Lane and Portpool Lane. It also includes Nos.11, 11A and 12 Portpool Lane, and Nos.51-75 Leather Lane.

The buildings are constructed in yellow and red bricks with some blue and glazed bricks. Portions of the elevations towards Leather Lane and Portpool Lane are stuccoed. The roofs are slated with brick chimneys. Details include stone string courses, parapets and segmental arches. Concrete open stairs and balconies feature iron railings. Windows are wooden sash and casement types.

The architectural style is Free Classical with Arts and Crafts touches, developing the approach established by the LCC's Boundary Street and Millbank Estates in a more formal direction.

The exterior comprises five-storey flats with balcony access; some portions have a sixth storey set within the roof. The layout is enclosed, with Kirkeby and Buckridge Houses arranged in parallel on a north-south axis behind the street frontage. An open courtyard, formerly with crazy paving and cobbles, lies between Kirkeby House and Laney House. Laney House and Nigel House form a continuous perimeter along Leather Lane and Portpool Lane respectively. Some later alterations have been made.

Laney House features an elevation to Leather Lane with shopfronts between granite piers on the ground storey. The upper portions display brick quoins and alternate between three and four full storeys with deep cornices. The centres of the three lower portions have rubbed brick pilasters with Ionic capitals rising to triangular pediments, two of which were removed after war damage. Dormers pierce the roof. A curved corner between Leather Lane and Portpool Lane is articulated with giant pilasters in stucco running through the upper storeys. The rear elevation has a projecting ground storey terminated by a high parapet wall with chequered brickwork pattern; windows at this level are now filled in. Above are balconied elevations with a complex roof line.

Kirkeby and Buckridge Houses are similar in design, with plain brick elevations in one direction having slightly projecting ends with triangular pediments and centres with segmental pediments, both embellished with quoins. The rear elevations are irregular, featuring open stairs, balconies and distinctive glazed-brick entrances towards Laney House.

Nigel House presents a long elevation to Portpool Lane, aligned with Redman House on the north side of Portpool Lane and identical in design. It has solid ground and first storeys of channelled brickwork with alternating sections of plain brickwork and giant pilasters above. A continuous moulded parapet and dormer windows enliven the roof. The rear displays quoined projections and broad triangular pediments over arched entrances, open stairs, balconies, and an angled projection through four storeys near the west end of the group.

Historically, this estate represents the last of three major centre-city housing estates built by the London County Council before the First World War. It differs in layout and approach from the Boundary Street Estate in Tower Hamlets and the Millbank Estate in Westminster. The southern portion was conceived as a slum-clearance scheme, probably designed before the northern portion but built later. The estate is a significant precursor in form and style of inter-war housing estates throughout Britain and has been influential on tenement housing throughout Europe. It forms a group with the northern part of Bourne Estate on Clerkenwell Road.

The interiors have not been inspected.