Marshall House Linen And Woollen Drapers Institute

TQ2392 HAMMERS LANE 31/17/10400 Mill Hill 30-MAR-01 Marshall House Linen and Woollen Drape rs Institute

II

Marshall House, Hammers Lane, Mill Hill, LB Barnet

Former retirement home, now offices. 1897 by George Hornblower, architect (1858-1940). Red brick with extensive terra cotta enrichment, tiled roof and tile-hung gables. Central three-bay block, surmounted with a wooden cupola carried on eight Doric columns, with an arched doorcase with panelled door and fanlight, surmounted by a finial-flanked fifteen-light oriel window below a stepped gable with terra cotta finials. The door is flanked with granite inscription tablets within terra cotta surrounds, referring to its 1897 foundation as THIS CENTRAL BLOCK OF THE HOMES FOR PENSIONERS OF THE LINEN & WOOLLEN DRAPERS INSTITUTION, and its erection in memory of James Marshall. The adjoining two storey side ranges were built at the same time as further living accommodation. To the rear is a double-height addition of 1901 containing a smoking and reading room annexe, with dedicatory tablet on the north side. Interior: features include an oak staircase with turned balusters; the smoking room retains its open timber roof, inglenook fireplace and matching bench. The principal room is the first floor hall, with open timber roof carried on trusses, rising from stone corbels, each designed in the form of a triumphal arch; over the door is a bust of the donor George Marshall on a moulded bracket. The central oriel window is glazed with fifteen panels of stained glass, signed by T.F. Curtis Ward and Lucas, 1898: the upper two registers depict Christ in Majesty amid angels, flanked by panels of Faith, Hope, Charity and Truth; below is a three-panel depiction of Charity, flanked by side panels of Dorcas and Lydia. History: this building formed the communal premises of the cottage homes foundation of the Linen and Woollen Drapers' Institution, a friendly society founded in 1832 by employees of the drapery trade, which opened a complex of forty-two cottages here in 1898 on ground given by the successful draper George Marshall, of the Marshall and Snelgrove drapery store; the side wings were donated by his partner. A strong architectural design retaining interiors of note, the building is a good example of late Victorian commercial philanthropy.