Queens Court

Queens Court is a housing development for working women within Hampstead Garden Suburb, built in 1927 to designs by architects Hendry and Schooling. It was sponsored by and remains owned by the United Women's Housing Association.

The building comprises an extended L-plan of eleven contiguous ranges constructed in red brick laid in stretcher bond with hipped tile roofs and wood-framed casements. It is executed in a Vernacular Revival style and rises to two storeys. The rear ranges are reached by three open loggias.

The north frontage on Hampstead Way contains a long range of two units flanking a central loggia, with an additional half-unit to the far right. Each unit features a pair of advanced gabled crosswings at either end, these detailed with corbelled flat tile eaves and 3-light casements to both storeys. The recessed centre of each unit contains a central entrance beneath a tall dormer that cuts through the eaves, flanked by high 3-light casements under short dormers. The central entrances are protected by deep canopies of varying segmental or gambrel profile mounted on console brackets, topped with a grid of bricks laid alternately horizontal and vertical and flat tiles. The loggias are supported on eight abstractly jowelled posts under beams, with a flat roof above containing a wide dormer window with 3-light casements flanking blind panels detailed with diagonal work. A wider canted range at the corner has a hipped roof and 4-light dormer over similar brickwork detailing and canopy.

The eastern return elevation features a central loggia, wider than that to the north and with three separate dormers. Units to either side are similarly detailed, with a canted corner range featuring a hipped roof, wide entrance through to the rear with timber lintel resting on flat tiles. The southern return has a further two units in similar style. Rear elevations are plainer, with round-arched openings to rear doors.

Internally, the building retains stick baluster staircases and some original doors. Alterations during the 1980s converted the former bedsit arrangement into self-contained flats.

Queen's Court was built in 1927 for the United Women's Homes Association as part of Henrietta Barnett's vision for Hampstead Garden Suburb to accommodate all social groups. Its construction was supported by Lord Emmott, a Liberal Member of Parliament, and his wife Lady Mary Gertrude Emmott, both active in housing reform. The site occupied what Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin had shown as building land in their preliminary plan of 1907, although later proposals had indicated a public garden. Barnett was persuasive in securing the development of the site. Architects Hendry and Schooling were selected after other proposals, including two-storey cottages and a scheme by Barry Parker, Thomas Garrett and Son, were deemed too costly. The second United Women's Housing Association development, Emmott Close, was built the following year by the same architects. Edwin Lutyens later described Queens Court as "the best bit of modern domestic architecture you have got on the estate".