17B, Princes Place

249/0/10230 PRINCES PLACE 10-SEP-03 17B

II Mews house over garages, can be let as separate studio and flat. 1969-70 by Peter Aldington of Aldington and Craig for Tim Rock, then editor of the Architectural Review. Concrete block construction, faced in Lunsford sand-faced blue-brown paving bricks, board finished reinforced concrete beams. Timber mansard roof set behind parapet. Tight rectangular plan determined by the footprint of the mews house it replaced. Three storeys, with first-floor living room, bedroom and kitchen, and top floor studio set over ground-floor garages and basement store and photographic dark room. Studio has its original double-glazed aluminium patent glazing, single glazed aluminium framed opening lights on first floor, set in timer-framed black stained and leaded `clip-on' oriels with solid panels. Timber boarded doors to garages, with house entered through timber boarded door to left.

Interior. Stairs of Douglas fir in straight flights at side, with crossover. Access to the top-floor studio can be gained from the first-floor flat, or directly from the street if the flat is being let separately. Douglas fir also the studio ceiling, with other ceilings of rough screen plaster. Built in shelves and cupboards designed by Aldington are integral with the composition. Fitted furniture was built in wherever possible, as it is so difficult to bring large pieces into the house, including kitchen cupboards and drop-down table. The studio in particular demonstrates its timber construction `as part of the visual entertainment of the house' (House and Garden, November 1971).

This is a neat, well-made mews house that maximises its tiny site to the full, providing two garages and two living units on a site only 14'9" deep. It is novel in providing a modern appraisal of the traditional mews building of a flat set over a coach house, and its internal built-in fixtures and galley kitchen maximise the limited space, while allowing it to be used to the maximum of flexibility.

Peter Aldington came to prominence with the building of his own house and two others in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, in which he carefully balanced vernacular and modern traditions, adapting a functional approach to the specifics of a site and developing complex solutions to carefully determined brief (developed by John Craig). This is his only urban design, in which he invests the same rigour to a traditional London building. It takes his interest in compact planning and built-in furniture to its extreme.

Sources Architectural Review, August 1971, p.83 Architect and Building News, April 1974 House and Garden, November 1971, pp.84-8