Brunswick Close Estate Heritage Study DATE April 2012 Contents Contents Introduction 5 Description of Location 5 Sources 5 History & Development of the Area 7 Features of the Area 16 The Square & its Houses 17 Northampton Square Gardens 22 19 Tompion Street 24 1-4 & 5-13 Sebastian Street 25 11-18 Ashby Street 28 14 Wyclif Street 30 City University Buildings & Railings 32 Berry Place 38 167-181 Goswell Road 39 Other Buildings of Note 42 Evaluation of Proposals 49 4 Brunswick Close Estate Heritage Study 5 HFI-BCE-101 HFI-BCE-101 London Borough of Islington Conservation Area 20 Map; study area outlined in orange. London Borough of Islington Interactive Map, accessed April 2012 4 Brunswick Close Estate Heritage Study 5 HFI-BCE-101 HFI-BCE-101 Introduction Development proposals for Sites 1, 2 & 3 on the Brunswick Close Estate are adjacent, near to, and within the Conservation Area respectively. This Conservation Area Assessment has been written to describe the significance of the heritage assets of the Northampton Square Conservation Area in accordance with Chapter 12 of the National Planning Policy Framework 2012. The research was undertaken by A. Sullivan of HTA Architects during March and April 2012. Description of Location Northampton Square is in Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington. The assessment area considered in this document is bounded by Goswell Road, Percival Street, St. John Street and Spencer Street. The Northampton Square Conservation Area, No.29 designated in 1990, covers the middle of this area. The development proposals apply to three sites on the Southern boundary of the Conservation Area with one, Site 3, within the boundary. Sources Modern Architecture. H. Heathcote Statham. London, Champman & Hall, 1897. The History of the Squares of London, Topographical and Historical. E. Beresford Chancellor. London, Keegan Paul, Trench, Traubner & Co Ltd., 1907. The Squares of Islington, Part 1 Finsbury & Clerkenwell. Mary Cosh. Islington Archaeology & History Society, 1990. Survey of London, Vol.XLVI, South & East Clerkenwell. Ed. Philip Temple. English Heritage & Yale University Press, 2008. Survey of London, Vol.XLVII, North Clerkenwell & Pentonville. Ed. Philip Temple. English Heritage & Yale University Press, 2008. London Metropolitan Archives Catalogue Islington Local Studies Centre Catalogue Roque Map 1746 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/ COU_files/ENG/LON/Rocque/rocque_index.htm Accessed 28/3/12. Booth Map. http://booth.lse.ac.uk Accessed 28/3/12. http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/ Accessed 28/3/12. http://wycliffe.org.uk/wycliffe/about/history-ofbt.html Accessed 3/4/12. http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/lollards.html Accessed 5/4/12 6 Brunswick Close Estate Heritage Study 7 HFI-BCE-101 HFI-BCE-101 Figure 1: John Roque Map of London, 1746 with study area outlined in orange Photo 1: Northampton Square, April 2012. 6 Brunswick Close Estate Heritage Study 7 HFI-BCE-101 HFI-BCE-101 History & Development of the Area Northampton Square is mostly fields on the Roque map of 1746 (Figure 1). A route connects St. John Street with Goswell Road aligning with the New River Head to the North West, and Northampton House can be seen set back from the road with an extensive botanic garden. The house had been vacated by the Northampton family by 1708, had become an asylum by 1728 and by 1817 had become a young ladies boarding academy remaining so until demolition in 1874 for the Vicarage buildings, of which No.14 Wycliff Road remains. The Earls of Northampton owned land in Canonbury and Clerkenwell developing streets and houses on both. At Clerkenwell, to the South of Northampton House, was the Skin Market established by the Skinners Company for the sale of sheep skins, and a development of buildings known as Wood’s Close, the first of any size on the site. A comprehensive plan to develop the land with streets and houses around a square was first made in 1791 by the Agent for the Estate, E. Boodle and S.P. Cockerell Surveyor to the Estate to address the financial difficulties of Charles Compton, 9th Earl Northampton. Despite the ambitions toward building, in 1792 part of the site is recorded being used for keeping the stray animals of the parish. The delay in commencing development follows the New River Company successfully citing the risk of building works to the water supply which crossed the site to the City. By 1805 the Company’s lease had expired and the square was being laid out to a revised plan informed by the route of the water main generating the unusual street layout and elliptical garden in the square. The houses overlooking the square were to be of higher status, their design prepared in the 1790s by S.P. Cockerell having three storeys with an attic and basement, and those of the surrounding streets designed for tradespeople and labourers. The rush to income led to leases for building plots often being signed before the houses had been completed and for terms of around only 70 years. This put the Estate at risk and reduced the appeal of the Square for the Upper 10,000 which favoured the more common 99year lease. The Estate Plan of 1809 (Figure 2) shows the progress of development on the Northampton Clerkenwell lands, the space on the plan between was owned by the Skinner’s Company. The greater importance given to Charles Street is clear. At this date Northampton House with its long garden stretching to St John Street and botanic garden stretching South to the Skin market is still standing. Of the houses on the square still standing today No.12, Nos.22 to 25 and Nos.31 to 34 were built. The South side of Charles Street and most of the South side of Ashby Street are complete. No.181 Goswell Road at the corner of Ashby Street is standing. Commercial premises and outbuildings have covered some of the land behind the completed terraces though most of the North side of the square remains undeveloped. The six streets were named for the Northampton Family. Taylor’s Road already existing was renamed Upper and Lower Charles Street in 1814. Smith Street was named for Lady Maria, wife of the 9th Earl Northampton and daughter to a Mr. Smith, Gentleman, of Wiltshire. Ashby Street is named after Castle Ashby the family estate in Northamptonshire. The first houses were built on the South parts of the East and West sides of the square by Samuel Danford with Thomas Woollcott of which Nos.22-25 survive (Photo 2). 8 Brunswick Close Estate HFI-BCE-101 Initially the occupants of the square were professional and genteel, though finding tenants was difficult with Nos.19-21 remaining empty until 1816. By the 1830s entrepreneurs and businessmen had moved in taking the square away from its earliest aspirations and the square came to be associated with clock and watch makers with workshops in the attics and basements. Land behind the terraces was also used for workshops and by the 1840s these were joined by small houses for workers. This downturn from the genteel deepened as the short leases fell in from the 1870s. Maintenance was poor, houses were split into tenements and efforts to turn the decline around made by the 4th Marquess were ineffectual. Detail of Figure 2; Northampton Square Residential in pink, Commercial in grey. At the end of Lower Ashby Street St. Peter’s Church was built by 1871 with a Vicarage and school buildings completed by 1877 sometime after the area was surveyed for the Ordnance Survey (Figure 3). At this time the original square was standing in its most complete form in the context of the original 1790s design. The square, Upper Charles Street and Spencer Street are fronted with larger properties with smaller properties on the other streets. Behind these principal routes are tightly packed terraces on Brunswick Street, Portland Place and Market Street on the site of the 18th Century Skin Market and the botanic garden of Northampton House. Elsewhere workshops and other industrial buildings including a flour mill cover the land behind the fine terraces, though in the North East quadrant a garden can be seen. 8 Brunswick Close Estate HFI-BCE-101 London Metropolitan Archives Figure 2: Northampton Estate Plan, 1809. Figure 3: Ordnance Survey 1/2500, 1877. Crown Copyright & Landmark Information Group 2012 Figure 4: Ordnance Survey 1/2500, 1896. Crown Copyright & Landmark Information Group 2012 12 Brunswick Close Estate Heritage Study 13 HFI-BCE-101 HFI-BCE-101 The 1893 Post Office Directory lists numerous watchmakers and jewelers on the square, as well as Milliners, Furriers, an Architect, Engravers and at 21A the Finsbury Income and Land Tax Office. The Northampton Institute was established in 1891 to provide technical education, physical training and recreation for the young men and women of the area’s poorer classes and address the needs of the local clock and watch making industries. A design competition for a new building on the site of houses between Ashby Street and Charles Street was won by E.W. Mountford with construction beginning in 1894. The North ranges were complete by 1896 and the South range by 1898 when it was opened by the Lord Mayor of London who Figure 5: Booth Poverty Map, 1899 praised it as ‘a palace of technical education.’ The 1896 London School of Economics Library Ordnance Survey (Figure 4) shows the building in progress. To the South East Brunswick Close and Market Street have been pushed through to Smith Street, perhaps to admit fresh air to dispel the ills of so many living in such close proximity. Charles Booth’s London Poverty Map of 1899 (Figure 5) characterises these streets as poor while much of the area has ‘good ordinary earnings’ with ‘some well to do’ overlooking the square.