142, Slough Lane

TQ 2088 SLOUGH LANE 935/7/10051 No.142

GV II

Detached house. 1921-2 by E G Trobridge. Timber framed and boarded to Trobridge's Compressed Green Elmwood construction, still with some bark; thatched roof and cresting, two brick stacks. Picturesque composition, yet near symmetrical plan with central staircase, rear kitchen with slightly later lean-to extension, designed in keeping. Two storeys, but front elevation kept deliberately low, with extended roof over panelled door. Leaded lights, those at rear set in corners, that to parlour and one upstairs room with additional toplight treated as eyebrow dormer. INTERIOR. Living room and parlour each with corner brick fireplaces, braced beams, and lower inglenook related to bedspaces on floor above. Slat baluster stairs. The upstairs more simply treated, with panelled walls and timber ceilings. Ernest George Trobridge (1884-1942) was a maverick local architect inspired by Swedenborgian beliefs, whose home in Slough Lane is already listed. At the end of the First World War, when there was a shortage of housing and a shortage ofjobs for returned servicemen, he devised a method of using the then plentiful local timber in a way that was cheap and quick, by using unseasoned elm when it was soft and pliable. By forming boards in a wedge shape, according to his patented design, it would be possible to make adjustments to take up shrinkage as the wood dried out. He arranged his rooms to mike maximum use of available space and to keep heights low. The frame was based on the width of a door for maximum flexibility .Trobridge believed that the use of timber was more economical than brick, and in 1920 the Ministry of Labour agreed a scheme of employment of disabled ex-servicemen, and Trobridge purchased ten acres on Slough Lane for his houses. Although subsidies were not forthcoming, by the end of September 1922 a number of houses had been completed for specific clients, of which three survive. This example is in particularly good condition. Trobridge wrote that 'the philosophy of Swedenborg affects every detail of every structure. ..Broadly speaking the doctrine of degrees enables one to divide each problem into end cause and effect. The science of correspondence (or symbols) then shows how the cause affects should be contained by the effect.' The result for Trobridge's architecture was a building style that was at once logical yet also expressionistic and wildly individualistic. No.142 Slough Lane forms an extended group with the other listed cottages thereby Trobridge. Source Graham Paul Smith, Ernest George Trobridge, Architect Extraordinary , Oxford Brooke University, 1982 Geoffrey Hewlett, The Trobridge Trail, unpublished guide, 1997 Geoffrey Hewlett, Buck Lane and Slough Lane (Kingsbury) Conservation Area Guide, LB Brent, 1982

Listing NGR: TQ2020588572