Cairns Cottage At Barnardo'S

Cairns Cottage is a semi-detached cottage home built in 1887 by architect Ebenezer Gregg, with later alterations. It forms part of Barnardo's Girls' Village Home in Barkingside and is notably larger and grander than the other cottages in the settlement.

Exterior

The building comprises two semi-detached residences constructed in brick with rough-cast render and half-timbered detailing. The residence facing the village green follows the general form of the nearby cottages but is slightly larger, with bay windows on both the ground floor and first floor.

The other residence features a distinctive octagonal clock tower with a belfry and four clock faces, each beneath its own small gable. The tower is crowned by a weather vane with the word "Cairns" fretted into its tail. The bells sound the Westminster chime every quarter hour and were restored in 2005. The projecting porch to the north was added shortly after construction; originally the building had only the porch to the east.

Interior

The western residence originally had the same plan as the other cottages, except for the upper storey which included an additional two bedrooms to the rear and an additional Mother's sitting room. Each of these bedrooms had an individual water closet and is labelled "refectory" on the original plans, presumably indicating they were for children when they were sick. The stair survives with its stick balusters and decorative newel posts, as does one fireplace on the ground floor. The ground floor rooms have been opened up from their original plan. Upstairs, dado panelling, architraves and ventilation shafts survive in some rooms.

The residence with the clock tower has two large reception rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms above, all retaining their cornices but no fireplaces. The entrance hall has a patterned tiled floor and the dog-leg stair features an ornate newel post, turned balusters, moulded treads and a moulded handrail. The joinery in this section is much grander than in the cottages, and the rooms are more generously proportioned. The nature of the accommodation—two sitting rooms and two bedrooms but no kitchen or servants' area—and its location at what was the centre of the two village greens suggests this part of Cairns Cottage may have been where important visitors to the Girls Village Homes stayed. Dr Barnardo did not live at the Village Homes after 1874, so it is possible he was accommodated here on his visits, perhaps taking his meals with the girls in one of the cottages.

Historical Context

Cairns Cottage is a principal element of Barnardo's Girls' Village Home. It is larger than the other cottage homes and is located at what was originally the fulcrum of the first and second greens, hence its prominent clock tower. It was named in memory of Lord Cairns, one-time Lord Chancellor, who was an important supporter of Dr Barnardo's Homes.

Thomas John Barnardo (1845-1905) arrived in Barkingside in 1874, having been given Mossford Lodge, a large house and grounds, as a wedding present by Sir John Sands. Dr Barnardo had many such admirers, particularly from Christian evangelical backgrounds, due to his zealous charitable work with the destitute children of London's East End. His marriage in 1873 and the gift of Mossford Lodge lent Barnardo the moral propriety and the means to focus more of his attention on the plight of penniless girls. Barnardo and his wife lived in the house and accommodated twelve girls in its stable block. The arrangement was not an immediate success, partly because the girls were difficult to control.

In 1876, Barnardo began building a Village Home. This was to be a series of cottages arranged around a green, each under the care of a "Mother", promising a domestic, familial environment in which to nurture the girls. Funds for the first cottage were given as a memorial to a dead child and in 1876 fourteen cottages were opened by Lord Cairns, then Lord Chancellor, along with a Governor's House and laundry. The cottages were similar in elevation to a plan for a pair of labourers' cottages shown at the Great Exhibition in 1851 by Henry Robert. Subsequent homes were built as funds became available, each named by its benefactor. Hence, some are named for institutions (Oxford, Cambridge), others flowers (Pink Clover), others virtues (Peace, Hope) and some as memorials (such as Eton Cottage, which bears a plaque reading "In memory of my son AR").

The idea of village homes was not new. In 1867, the Farningham and Swanley Homes for Boys, Kent was founded on similar principles and the Princess Mary Homes in Addlestone, Surrey opened in 1870; both were inspired by similar institutions in France and Germany. Yet Barnardo's Village Home was the most famous and the largest, and is the only one of these first three English examples where the cottages survive. Only the lodge and chapel survive at Farningham and nothing at Addlestone.

The girls lived around twenty to a house and employed themselves in housework, laundry, needlework and basic school lessons. The aspiration was that the girls would find employment as laundresses, dressmakers' assistants, or in domestic service, but the number taken in by the Village Home (1,000 lived there in 1905) and the "ever open door" policy made this difficult. From the 1880s, Dr Barnardo began to sponsor the emigration of children to Canada. Barnardo took a party of boys to Canada in 1882, girls in 1883, and by 1884 he had established an "industrial farm" in Manitoba to provide work for the boys. The policy was not uncontroversial: Dr Barnardo was under investigation for kidnapping on at least three occasions, having sent away children without the permission of their parents. Many children suffered in their new homes, from ill-health, from overwork on Canada's farms, and, in some cases, from serious abuse. By 1906, 13,000 boys and 5,000 girls had emigrated, to the extent that in 1901 some 0.3 percent of Canada's population had come from a Barnardo's Home.

By Barnardo's death in 1905 there were 64 cottage homes arranged around three greens (built in 1876-1880, 1887, and 1903-1905). The gardens were landscaped, with gravel paths, rose bowers, fountains, specimen trees, and benches. Barnardo's ashes were interred in the centre of one of the village greens, after an extensive funeral cortege had progressed from the East End, via train, with thousands paying their respects. His resting place, on what is now the southern edge of the village, is marked with a memorial by George Frampton RA (1860-1928), erected in 1908. The second half of the 20th century saw the demolition of much of the previous era's building efforts. All the cottages around the southern green of 1876-1880 and the majority around the south-western green of 1903-1905 were demolished along with the schools, hospital, Governor's House and Mossford Lodge.