Northern Heights Circuit Highgate North Hill

1 NORTHERN HEIGHTS CIRCUIT London’s open air museum : buildings, famous people, nature, social history HIGHGATE NORTH HILL The most architecturally diverse residential street in London? The walk starts at Highpoint at the junction of Introduction North Hill and North Road Highgate. It can be reached by public transport using route 143 The “North Hill Challenge” is one of a series from Archway Underground Station or by a of self guided walks designed by the Highgate short walk from Highgate Underground Society to showcase North London‟s heritage. Station. These walks reveal the amazing diversity that North London offers in terms of buildings, It ends close to an Esso petrol station where famous people, nature and social history, all of North Hill meets the Archway Road at its it in the open air. intersection with the Great North Road and Falloden Way. The 143 bus will take return The remarkable quality of Highgate North Hill you from this point to Archway Underground is the diversity of its building styles. Arguably Station. no other road in London, Britain, Europe or, who knows, even the world compares with Whereas many architectural walks focus on North Hill in terms of the diversity of its what is particular about each building, the domestic architecture. North Hill Challenge is designed to help the reader interpret generic features which characterise English domestic buildings of different periods. This, we hope, will enable the walker to better appreciate the buildings of other parts of London and indeed elsewhere in Britain by understanding the factors that caused them to be built the way they were. By organising 34 of the more interesting buildings in North Hill in the order in which they were built, it is possible to trace the evolution of English domestic architecture across a period of 500 years and ten different monarchs. The walk, which is only 800 yards long, is designed to be done in combination with sections one and two of the Northern Heights Circuit. The Highgate Society 2 The buildings of Highgate North Hill The buildings of North Hill described in this version of the guide are numbered and listed in the approximate order of their construction. If you do the walk you may prefer to download from the Highgate Society website the version of the guide which is organised in walk order. To follow this guide, ie the one in “walk” order, starting at the top of North Hill and 60 North Hill ending at the gyratory at the bottom, start at the entry for building number 21. At the end 2 : This house is a fine example of what might of its description you will be referred to the be described as suburban Georgian. Its period next building in walk order and so forth until of construction can be inferred in part from the you come to the bottom of the hill. Note – external wall which protrudes above the roof buildings may be on either side of the road. level. The left hand pavement, going down the hill, tends to provide the better view. This gives important protection in the event of fire which was a particular hazard when, as would have been the case with this house, internal walls were built using wood rather than brick. Such protection was required of all residential buildings under building regulations which were introduced in response to the calamitous Fire of London in 1666. Though the design is simple and unostentatious, the house has been built to a high standard of design and craftsmanship. Note that the weights used by the sash windows are carefully recessed behind the 41 North Hill brickwork giving a clean and elegant window design. 1 : According to the plaque on this house it is the oldest surviving building on North Hill, The lintels are of brick and the shallow arch dating from the 16th century. Its appearance is would have been created using a timber too orderly for us to mistake its exterior for a template, the bricks then being capable of Tudor or medieval original. supporting the weight of the wall above. A similar arch is found in building 19. It has clearly been re-modelled, probably during the Victorian period and definitely The porch has traces of the Greek Doric order. before 1918, but nevertheless in such a way as This is significant because the fashion for to retain a distinctively Tudor appearance by Greek rather than Roman detail is typical of the use of black painted diagonal timbers, the very end of the 18th century so this may white plasterwork and windows with small have been a later modification. panes of leaded glass. The house and others of its period tend to be Next building in walk order : 3. both wider and less deep than later houses, particularly Victorian ones. Opening on both sides of the entrance hall “dual aspect” rooms overlook the street at the front and the garden at the rear. The Highgate Society 3 In times when land was much cheaper, relative Urn published in 1820 and the design of the to the cost of building, there was little pressure British Museum in a Greek Revival idiom. outside central London to maximise the number of dwellings for any width of road An extension has been added to the right frontage. (looking from the road), probably in the mid 19th century, incorporating as a design element Next building in walk order : 17. a bay window on the upper floor. A similar detail is found in buildings 9 and 11. By this time rainwater was channelled off the roof using gutters. Even so you can see on the front facade a decorative brick entablature, a feature initially intended to prevent rainwater running down the brick face of the house. Now that wood was scarcer and bricks used for internal partition walls there is a lower risk of fire. This allowed builders to avoid extending brick walls above the roof line as had been the previous practice. North Hill House, 57 North Hill Note the mansard roof – a roof incorporating a shallow and then a steeper gradient. This 3 : This villa probably dates from the Regency device enables the space under the eaves of the period 1811 - 1830, which takes its name from roof to be used for accommodation. the period (1811 – 1820) during which the subsequent George IV acted as Prince Regent The windows have lead flashing. Lead had for his father George III. been used as a roof material even in medieval times principally for churches. But it was The exterior reflects design features possibly expensive and could be afforded only for use resulting from the imposition by the in the more prestigious buildings, as for government of a window tax to fund the cost instance in the grand “leaden hall” from which of the Napoleonic wars. This incentivised Leadenhall Street in the city of London derives builders to incorporate fewer but larger its name. windows in order to maximise the light whilst minimising tax liability. Next building in walk order : 33. This is likely to have contributed to the inclusion of side panels, a departure from previous practice, in the design of vertical window facing the street. This innovation developed in due course into the concept of a bay window which by Victorian times had become a feature of almost every terraced house. Note the Greek influence in the design of the porch. This reflects the widespread interest in Greek culture fashionable at the time of the Greek war of independence with Turkey, a struggle which was popularised by Lord Byron 47 – 49 North Hill who himself fought for the Greek cause. 4 : This building is a good example of what is Examples of the revival of interest in Greek often referred to as “Provincial Georgian” culture at this time are Keats‟ Ode to a Grecian architecture. The Highgate Society 4 The term “provincial” is not pejorative. It is local version of a regency house, very simple used to describe houses built in a place which and unfussy. did not require buildings to comply with building regulations that were introduced Whereas a medieval roof would have been specifically for London houses. constructed of thatch, and a Georgian roof of tiles, the arrival of the railways now made The house was probably built by a speculative North Wales slate a viable alternative as developer without the assistance of an roofing material. architect but using a standard pattern book. It may originally have been built as a single Whereas thatch, which was heavy, porous and house or perhaps as a pair of unequal sized had many joints, required the pitch of the roof semi-detached houses. The design is well to be steep enough to ensure rain drained off thought through, not over elaborate and rather than into the roof, slate, which is a incorporates a standard 1 : 1 ratio between the thinner and hence lighter material and has width of the windows and the intervening many fewer joints, enabled water to run off walls. more readily into gutters and downpipes. This resulted in and roof designs with a much The arrangement of the rooms on different shallower pitch than was normally necessary floors reflects the conventions of the time with when using earlier roofing materials. a dedicated kitchen being situated on a lower ground floor, a day room, dining room and Next building in walk order : 32. perhaps a study on the upper ground floor, the principal bedroom above and on the top floor space for children and servants. There is a standard lintel which protects and prevents a view of the roof.

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