48, Kensington Court

Town mansion, now subdivided as flats, built 1888-89 for Colonel R.E.B. Crompton by architect J. A. Slater, with Kirk and Randall of Woolwich as contractors. The building is constructed of orange-red engineering brick in English bond with Portland stone dressings and a blue Welsh slated roof concealed by a parapet. It comprises five storeys with an attic storey over a basement, with a front area.

The building adopts a simplified Tudor style. The front elevation presents two unequal bays with an entrance positioned at the right, approached by steps. The entrance comprises an inset doorway with a battened door featuring elaborate foliated strap hinges, knocker and handle centred within an arch. The arch has carved foliated spandrels and a moulded surround. To the left of the entrance is an inset three-light mullioned window with patterned leaded glazing, set within a stone surround and beneath a dripmould. The left-hand bay has a projecting three-light mullion and transom window in a stone surround with plain glazing, beneath the moulded base of a tall oriel mullion and transom bay that rises through the first and second floors. A string course runs below this bay, continuing across the facade as a shallow balcony supported on stone corbels above the entrance. Elaborate wrought-iron railings provide access from a two-light mullion and transom window at balcony level. The top two floors each have three-light and two-light mullion and transom windows at corresponding levels, with stone string courses running around the building at cill and head levels. A gabled attic at the left contains a two-light mullioned window and moulded coping to the parapet. A modern two-light dormer window sits to the right, behind the parapet.

A tall brick chimneystack with oversailing courses rises at the right on the party wall. The left-hand chimneystack has a gabled base and appears to have been reduced in height. The building frontage has stone piers to the entrance stair with solid parapet sides, and elaborate wrought-iron area railings over a stone base course.

The return elevation to the left is simplified, while that to the right is blank but carries string courses from the frontage. At fourth floor level on the right elevation are seven closely spaced projecting slender brick pilasters. The left elevation contains two tall plain glazed sash windows on each floor. Further left the building sets back as a two-bay outshoot and joins to No. 46, the former Electric Lighting Station, built in 1888, also promoted by Colonel Crompton and designed by J. A. Slater.

The building was steel-framed, representing an early and significant use of this technique, with Lindsay's steel decking used for the ground floor. The third and fourth floors were originally fitted out as Crompton's laboratory. In addition to electric lighting, the house originally made use of gas for heating and cooking, pioneering ventures at the time.

Colonel R.E.B. Crompton was a notable pioneer of electrical engineering. In 1885 he was shown around Kensington Court, the development of which began in 1882, promoted by Jonathan Carr and initially designed by J. J. Stephenson. In 1886, Crompton's company, the Kensington Court Electric Lighting Company, established a temporary generator station to serve the development, which was superseded in 1888 by the permanent structure of No. 46. Crompton's house, originally named Thriplands, was built in 1888-89.