DE BEAUVOIR TOWN
De Beauvoir Town is taken to be the
south-west corner of Hackney parish from
Kingsland Road west to Southgate Road and
from the Regent's canal north almost to Ball's
Pond Road. (fn. 81) It embraces the Hackney estate of
the de Beauvoir family, lords of Balmes, whose
land extended farther south into Shoreditch, and
excludes Ball's Pond Road, which was built up
as part of Islington. (fn. 82) Balmes House and the
northern part of the estate were sometimes said
to be in Kingsland. (fn. 83)
Development was stimulated by the cutting of
the Regent's canal south of Balmes House, (fn. 84) by
which time the house was an asylum and much
of its land had been leased to the Rhodes family.
William Rhodes (d. 1843) secured in 1821 a
building lease from Peter de Beauvoir which was
to lead to lawsuits (fn. 85) and unusually made no
stipulations about the buildings; it covered all
150 a., said in 1834 to have been the largest single
amount conveyed to a speculative builder in
London.
Rhodes planned a grid pattern, with four
squares on diagonal streets intersecting at an
octagon. His paving and lighting Bill of 1823 (fn. 86)
was abandoned, however, and development was
piecemeal and mainly along the fringe, where
modest buildings could most easily find tenants:
by the canal, along or off Kingsland Road, (fn. 87) and
in Tottenham Road. A few subleases were made
by Rhodes from 1822 and more from 1823, (fn. 88)
when Richard Benyon de Beauvoir stopped all
activity through an injunction. Rhodes was soon
allowed to resume work on Kingsland basin but
apparently he started no new building before
control of all development passed to de Beauvoir
in 1834. Subleases were still made by Rhodes,
as of houses in Kingsland Road in 1824, in
Enfield Road in 1826, and in Tottenham Road
in 1825 and 1828. (fn. 89)
Most of the land between Kingsland and Hertford roads had been built on by 1834, except
immediately north of Englefield Road. To the
west there was new building only by the canal,
at the corners of Hertford and Downham roads,
perhaps on the eastern side of the later De
Beauvoir Square (nos. 1-16 Park Place), and part
of Tottenham Road. Balmes House survived
between Downham Road and the canal, although threatened by the lines of Whitmore and
Frederick (later De Beauvoir) roads. (fn. 90) For the
land thereafter leased by R. B. de Beauvoir a
more spacious layout was devised, with terraces
mainly in short blocks and many semidetached
villas; of the projected squares only the southeastern was retained, as De Beauvoir Square,
although the diagonals partly survived in Enfield, Stamford, and Ardleigh roads. (fn. 91) Progress
was hastened by the proximity of depots in
Kingsland basin and by loans from the estate to
individual builders. (fn. 92) In the 1840s subleases
were made for most of the remaining houses.
Presumably most builders followed their own
designs, although the remaining three sides of
De Beauvoir Square, begun in 1838 with
Thomas Smith as the chief builder, may have
been by W. C. Lockner, architect of St. Peter's
church. (fn. 93)
The estate was intended to be almost wholly
residential, except around the basin and at the
south-west corner, where a factory leased from
1823 was apparently the forerunner of that of
Thomas Briggs the tentmakers. (fn. 94) Public houses
were permitted, the Duke of York in Downham
Road being leased to a brewing company as early
as 1822, and shops were leased in Southgate
Road from 1843. (fn. 95) Kingsland Road's west side
was commercial south of Downham Road and
north of Beauvoir Terrace by 1849. Away from
the high road nearly all the shops were in
Southgate, Hertford, and Downham roads, as
were the 7 public houses then and the 8 in
1869. (fn. 96)
Small areas were taken for a Roman Catholic
church and school of 1855 in Tottenham Grove
(from 1864 part of Tottenham Road) and for a
fire station in St. Peter's Road (from 1936 St.
Peter's Way), larger areas for Tottenham Road
board school (1874), the Metropolitan hospital
(1886), Enfield Road board school (1894), and
Kingsland fire station (1895). (fn. 97) Such inroads
perhaps affected the neighbourhood less than
scattered and often partial conversions of houses
into business premises.
Residents c. 1890 were well-to-do in Kingsland
and Southgate roads and, with the fairly comfortable, in most other streets. They were merely
comfortable in Tottenham Road and poorer in
the lanes to the north and in Derby (from 1909
Lockner) Road, where a terrace was sandwiched
between Kingsland Road and De Beauvoir
Square, and in Hertford Road close to the basin.
The very poor lived at the east end of De
Beauvoir Crescent by the canal. (fn. 98) Workshops,
many of them for wood products, existed
around the fringes, notably in Derby Road
and in De Beauvoir Crescent and other streets
between Downham Road and the canal, besides
a few in Englefield Road and the north part of De
Beauvoir Road. At the heart of the estate was a
small group that was to fill the east side of De
Beauvoir Road from Church (from 1937 Northchurch) Road to Englefield Road; it originated
in the long back gardens of houses in Mortimer
Road and in 1902 it included a builder's merchant, a picture-frame maker, and a
wheelwright. Tottenham Road had shops but
those in Southgate Road were confined to the
south end and those in Downham Road were
mainly at the east end. North of Downham Road
only a few houses were said to consist of apartments, in contrast to many where roads
continued into Islington. (fn. 99)
Because of Kingsland basin the agents of the
estate in 1937 asked for the south-east corner
between Downham and Hertford roads to be
zoned for general industrial rather than business
purposes. Zoning for industry, soon recommended for all the area south of Downham
Road, distinguished it from the north side of that
road, which was already zoned for business and
acted as a buffer for the mainly residential streets
beyond. In 1938 De Beauvoir Crescent was
suggested as another business zone to protect
housing to the north. In 1951 the agents claimed
that the area east of Hertford Road was suitable
for light industry and asked for Southgate Road,
always partly commercial, to be scheduled for
business. The L.C.C., however, retained both
areas as residential. (fn. 1)
Continued erosion of the residential area was
eventually followed by the better preservation of
its centre. (fn. 2) Part of the northern segment of De
Beauvoir Town, between Buckingham and Tottenham roads, was rebuilt in the early 1960s as
Hackney M.B.'s Kingsgate estate. A larger area,
west of the canal basin, containing many small
factories, made way c. 1969 for the De Beauvoir
Town council estate, (fn. 3) which included a library
and shops. De Beauvoir Square lost its oldest
(east) side to the Lockner Road estate. (fn. 4) The De
Beauvoir Town association was formed in 1968,
however, (fn. 5) and the rest of the square with the
area bounded by Englefield, Northchurch,
Southgate, Hertford, and Stamford roads in
1969 became a conservation area, later extended
southward. (fn. 6) In 1988 the social problems of the
De Beauvoir Town council estate produced
complaints of a 'high-rise hell', whereas most of
the 19th-century houses had been restored and
some of their roads closed to through traffic to
create a middle-class enclave. (fn. 7)
The Kingsland Road frontage has no survivals
from the mid 19th century except north of
Englefield Road, where two long terraces, separated by the rebuilt Prince of Wales public
house, contrast with the assorted buildings on
the east side of the high road. Both terraces have
three storeys over basements and are of stock
brick, the ground storeys rusticated and rendered. The south range, nos. 419-45 (odd), is
complete except at the ends and retains part of
a balcony for its central portion. The north one,
nos. 457-77, built by Charles Henry Moore of
Islington c. 1841, (fn. 8) bears a label on its parapet
inscribed Beauvoir Terrace.
Behind the frontage the area south of Downham Road contains 19th-century industrial
premises around the basin and, in the south-west
corner, Briggs's red- and yellow-brick factory,
in multi-occupation, besides newer works to the
north. Between the two industrial sites the dark
brown-brick and concrete buildings of the housing estate include towers of 18 storeys in De
Beauvoir Road.
Refurbishment continued in 1992 north of
Downham Road, in an area of stock-brick
houses, semidetached or in short terraces and
usually of two storeys over a basement. (fn. 9) Infilling
has been mainly with flats or maisonettes built
to the existing scale. Purpose-built works, used
by signmakers and clothing firms, intrusively
survive around the junction of De Beauvoir and
Englefield roads. Perhaps the most striking loss
has been the east side of De Beauvoir Square.
Rhodes's modest houses are represented only
at the west end of Tottenham Road. Most houses
are later and have classical details. Hertford
Road contains Benyon Cottages, nos. 97-107
(odd), a symmetrical group of three pairs dated
1839, and De Beauvoir Road has five pairs, nos.
87-105 (odd), of about that date. Northchurch
Road, elegant and little changed, has many
semidetached villas, including nos. 40-46, 48
and 50, 52 and 54, 1-15, and 17 and 19; nos.
21-27 form a symmetrical composition of four
houses and nos. 29-35 a near symmetrical terrace. Southgate Road, at nos. 110-16, has
three-storeyed terraces with pillared porches, as
at nos. 110-16 north of Ufton Grove. All those
houses combine with their neighbours to form
groups of architectural interest.
A transition from classical to Tudor and Jacobean styles, visible in nos. 387-401 Kingsland
Road before the building of the Lockner Road
estate, (fn. 10) can be seen in and around De Beauvoir
Square. The north, west, and south sides of the
square consist of pairs, mostly of two bays, in
stock brick with stone dressings; all have high
pitched roofs and two storeys over basements,
with attics under shaped gable-ends. Features
include a few clusters of diagonal chimneys and
several windows with lozenge glazing. The north
side of the square (1839) is a near symmetrical
composition of five pairs. The four pairs surviving on the west side and the five on the south
are later and more uniform. The group which
they compose around the railed circular garden
is completed at the north-west corner by modern
flats disguised to match their neighbours and to
the south-west by St. Peter's church and its
former Vicarage, no. 85 Mortimer Road. Opposite the church is no. 10 Northchurch Terrace,
altered but also Jacobean.