1 and 2, Pembroke Cottages

Pembroke Cottages, Nos 1 and 2, are a semi-detached pair of cottages dating from the early 19th century. They are two storeys high, plus a basement, with each cottage featuring two windows. The hipped roof is covered in slate. The cottages are constructed of brick, with channelled stucco on the ground floor and quoins at the corners. Each door has a semi-circular fanlight above it, and there are railings in front of the gardens.

From 1909 to 1911, No 1 Pembroke Cottages served as the headquarters for the Suffrage Atelier, an organization formed by artists to create suffrage propaganda. An appeal for studio space published in ‘Votes for Women’ led Laurence and Clemence Housman to offer their home studio to the group. Many suffragette banners were made in this studio, including those for the large Women’s Sunday demonstration in June 1908.

Although the Suffrage Atelier was not officially connected to any suffrage society, the Housmans were most closely associated with the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), a militant suffrage organization established in Manchester in 1903. Bertha Sharp, the secretary of Kensington WSPU, used Pembroke Cottages as her address. In 1911, during a census boycott organized by the WSPU, the occupants of Pembroke Cottages were recorded as Laurence Housman and four unnamed women who refused to disclose their identities.