Lauderdale House

TQ2887SE 798-1/6/1682

CAMDEN WATERLOW PARK Lauderdale House

10/06/54

GV II* House.1582 with extensive later additions and alterations. Roughcast on timber frame, with later rendered brick additions; tiled roof.

EXTERIOR: Two storeys, with gables. Brick vaulted cellars below courtyard and northeast front.

Northeast (entrance) front: asymmetrical two-storey front with wooden Doric porch below pediment with Diocletian window; projecting brick chimney-stack; four sash windows and door to ground floor; five sash windows to first floor; string courses at first and second floor levels; parapet.

Southeast (garden) front: ground floor with two canted bay windows flanked by two openings, one a window, the other a blocked doorway containing the inscription LCC LAUDERDALE HOUSE RENOVATED AD 1893; jettied upper storey with nine sash windows; central pedimental gable.

Southwest (park) front: wooden Doric loggia, six columns in length, with four French windows to house; first floor has five symmetrical sash windows; string course at second floor level; central attic storey with Diocletian window; pedimented gable end. Loggia extended to north by four columns.

INTERIOR: much altered, but with features of note. 'Nell Gwynne's bath', late C17 carved wooden buffet with marble shelf; early C19 plaster relief of Achilles, Patroclus and Briseis; late C17 wall painting of trompe l'oeil balustrade; late C20 fibre glass replacement of early C18 octagonal lantern over stairs; 90ft long gallery along southeast front with original timbers exposed, and late C17 plaster ceiling brought from demolished house in Leadenhall Street installed as part of ceiling.

HISTORICAL NOTE: house was built c1582 for Sir Roger Martin and substantially altered c1640 by Lady Home. Occupied by the Second Earl of Lauderdale in 1640s and 1660s; exterior transformed from original half-timbered appearance to present rendered neo-Classical appearance c1760.

House, with 29 acres, presented to London County Council in 1889 'for the enjoyment of Londoners' by Sir Sydney Waterlow bt. and extensively restored prior to opening in 1893. Major fire in 1963 destroyed roof and much of interior; restoration still underway at time this description revised in 1995.

(Barber P, Cox O and Curwen M: Lauderdale Revealed: 1993; Survey of London : 17: London:1936: 90).

Listing NGR: TQ2877387236