CHAPTER V - Bedford Gardens to Uxbridge Street:
The Racks
The area covered by this chapter (fig. 9),
which was known by the ancient name of
The Racks, was formerly part of the
Campden House estate and came into the possession
of the Phillimore family during the eighteenth
century (see page 58). In 1774 Robert Phillimore
appointed the reversion of The Racks to his
younger son, Joseph Phillimore, as part of a settlement
on the latter's marriage, and confirmed the
transaction by his will. (ref. 1)
Joseph Phillimore, who became vicar of Orton-on-the-Hill,
Leicestershire, sold The Racks,
consisting of slightly over twenty-five acres, by
auction in 1808 for £6,790 (equivalent to approximately
£270 per acre). (ref. 2) There were two purchasers.
Alexander Ramsay Robinson, who owned
other land in Kensington and had at one time been
a tenant of The Racks, purchased approximately
14½ acres, while John Jones of Harley Street,
esquire, bought the remaining 10½ acres. (ref. 3) The
dividing line between their respective purchases
is shown on fig. 9. In 1810 Jones sold his portion
to John Johnson of Horseferry Road, Westminster,
a paviour, for £2,660 (approximately
£253 per acre). (ref. 4)
Robinson also disposed of part of his newly
acquired land within a short time when he sold
3½ acres to the West Middlesex Water Works
Company (see below). In 1822 he agreed to sell
most of the remainder, (fn. a) or 10¾ acres, for £6,000
(approximately £560 per acre) to Henry Gore
Chandless of St. Marylebone. Chandless was the
son of a prosperous property owner and brother of
a barrister, (ref. 6) and, according to the deed of conveyance,
he had secured purchasers for part of
the land that Robinson had contracted to sell to
him before the documents could be drawn up. The
new parties to the transaction were two builders
from St. Marylebone, John Punter and William
Ward, who agreed to pay Chandless £4,300 for
5¾ acres (approximately £750 per acre). (ref. 7) Within a
few months Chandless had found a buyer for the
remaining 5 acres in another builder from St.
Marylebone, William Hall; (ref. 8) the price paid by
Hall is not known, but if it was at a comparable
rate to that paid by Punter and Ward, Chandless
would have secured a considerable profit on the
transactions. He was later found to be under
twenty-one years of age at the time of these dealings
and had to sign confirmatory deeds when he
achieved his majority, but he (or perhaps his
father or brother) seems to have shown considerable
business acumen.
In 1823 Punter and Ward divided the land
which they had jointly purchased, after having
agreed to lay out two east-west streets (Campden
Street and Peel Street). With minor exceptions,
Punter's share consisted of Peel Street and Ward's
of Campden Street. (ref. 9) Hall also planned to develop
his land by constructing an east-west road (Bedford
Place, now Bedford Gardens), but he was able
to provide house plots of much greater depth
(generally about a hundred feet) than those of
Punter and Ward. As a result of their decision
to make two roads across an area which was of
basically the same width as Hall's land, the house
plots in Peel Street and Campden Street were in
most cases less than fifty feet in depth, and the
houses built there were of a different type and
catered for a different social group from those in
Bedford Gardens.
Bedford Gardens
In 1823 William Hall, who was also building on
the Eyre estate in St. Marylebone, secured £9,000
by mortgaging his property in St. Marylebone and
Kensington. (ref. 10) One of his mortgagees was
William Hussey, a solicitor, who had helped to
arrange the sale of Robinson's land in 1822. Of
the total amount borrowed, £5,500 was apportioned
to Bedford Gardens, and shortly afterwards
Hall obtained a further £1,800 on the security of
this land. Before the end of the year his mortgagees
may have become concerned about Hall's solvency—perhaps
because an action was brought
against him for the recovery of £5,000 in debts (ref. 11)
and Bedford Gardens was put up for sale by auction
in ninety-seven lots, providing house plots
with seventeen-foot frontages. A number of
these plots on the south side of the road towards the
western end were bought by various individuals at
approximately £70 each, (ref. 12) but the whole of the
north side and most of the south side became the
property of William Bromley, a solicitor of the
firm of W. and J. W. Bromley of Gray's Inn. (ref. 13)
As in the case of Hussey, Bromley's firm had
been involved in the transactions which took place
in 1822.
Figure 9:
The Racks area, showing the lands bought by John Jones and Alexander Ramsay Robinson in 1808. Based on the
Ordnance Survey of 1862–72
Owing to lack of documentary evidence, it is
not possible to determine exactly how Bromley
came to acquire the freehold of most of Bedford
Gardens, but he may have been acting in Hall's
interest. In 1824 the two entered into an agreement
whereby Hall, by now referred to as William
Hall the elder, was to build a terrace
consisting of fifty-one houses with seventeen-foot
frontages on the north side of the road. The houses
were to be built to the satisfaction of William
Bromley's surveyor (who was not named) and
Bromley agreed to grant ninety-nine-year leases
from 1824 to Hall or his nominees. (ref. 14) The frontage
on the south side of Bedford Gardens, mostly
at the eastern end, of which Bromley also owned
the freehold, was developed by William Hall the
younger, Charles Hall and Caleb Hall, all of
St. Marylebone, builders, and probably the sons
of William Hall the elder. (ref. 15)
The Halls built two late-Georgian terraces of
basically identical design at the eastern end of
Bedford Gardens, consisting of twenty-three
houses on the north side of the street and twenty-two
on the south side (fig. 10). Of these Nos.
2–4 (even), 14–46 (even), 3–9 (odd) and 19–43
(odd) survive virtually intact and No. 1 considerably
altered. Most of the leases of houses on the
north side were granted directly to William Hall
the elder, and of those on the south side to William
Hall the younger, Charles Hall and Caleb Hall
jointly. Sometimes the Halls nominated other
lessees, who were presumably concerned with the
development. (fn. b) The yearly ground rent for each
house varied between £8 and £10, and if sold
leasehold a house could command a price of
approximately £600. (ref. 17)
Figure 10:
No. 22 Bedford Gardens,
elevation
The abrupt termination of the two terraces
halfway along Bedford Gardens may be explained
by the death of William Hall the younger in 1829
or 1830 (ref. 18) , and by the fact that William Hall the
elder appears to have encountered financial difficulties.
By 1830 only five houses were occupied
on the north side of the street (ref. 19) although leases had
been granted for seventeen, and in 1831 Nos.
36–46 (even) were leased to another builder,
Robert Paten of Paddington, by the direction of
two trustees of the estate and effects of William
Hall the elder. (ref. 20) That a new hand was at work in
finishing these houses can be seen by differences
in their appearance from other houses in the
terrace.
Bromley quickly sold the freeholds of completed
houses; in 1827, for instance, he disposed
of his interest in twenty houses on the south side of
Bedford Gardens and two in Kensington Church
Street for £4,580 (a sum equivalent to slightly
over twenty years' purchase of the ground rents). (ref. 21)
In 1831 he sold the remaining ground on the
north side of Bedford Gardens, as yet unbuilt on,
to Walter Alexander Urquhart, a City merchant.
Shortly afterwards Urquhart purchased land on
the south side of Campden Street so that he could
provide house plots which would extend for the
whole distance between the two streets. (ref. 22)
Urquhart's solicitors were the firm of Blunt,
Roy, Blunt and Duncan, and the developers chosen
by Urquhart, probably through his solicitors, were
Robert William Jearrad, Charles Jearrad and
Charles Stewart Duncan of Oxford Street, architects
and surveyors. Charles Stewart Duncan may
have been related to John Duncan, a partner in
the firm of solicitors, and both were later concerned
with developments on the Ladbroke
estate. A further connexion is that between Richard
Roy, another partner and later a major
speculator on the Ladbroke estate, and the Jearrad
brothers. All three had considerable interests in
Cheltenham, and the Jearrads not only designed
several buildings there, but also established a warehouse
in London to deal in Cheltenham salt. (ref. 23)
The Jearrads and Duncan built seven pairs of
semi-detached houses in Bedford Gardens and one
detached house facing Campden Hill Road. In
1835 Urquhart granted them ninety-nine-year
leases from 1834 at annual ground rents of £12
10s. after a two-year peppercorn term for the
semi-detached houses, and £25 for the detached
house. Urquhart himself provided £6,000 by way
of a mortgage to finance the development. (ref. 24) The
houses were completed by 1836 and the lessees
had no difficulty in finding tenants. (ref. 19) Shortly
afterwards the semi-detached villas were advertised
for sale by auction and were described as follows:
'The property is creditable to the achitectural
pretensions of the builder and presents a most
refreshing contrast to all the modern school.
Substantiality and elegance is combined with an
infinity of good taste, and Mr. Jarard (fn. c) had thus
acquired a new wreath to his well-earned previous
fame. The villas are formed on a petite scale,
but uniformity prevails throughout. The plan of
placing two villas under one roof is here exemplified
most successfully. The portico entrée to
each gives them a consequence at which their
neighbours do not aspire . . . They contain four
bedchambers, handsome dining room leading to
the drawing-room, dining parlour, small library,
cook's room, lots of closets, and a cammodité
[sic]; a kitchen, larder, scullery, wine cellars,
coal-shed, &c. To each is a large walled garden
behind, with plenty of fruit-trees, and a small garden
in front. The present low rental is only £50
for each villa, but the time is fast arriving when a
considerable addition will be willingly given.' (ref. 26)
These two-storey brick-faced houses, Nos. 48–74
(even) Bedford Gardens, have since been considerably
altered, but sufficient survives to give an
indication of their pleasing quality as a group, now
enhanced by a number of trees and shrubs.
No. 76 Bedford Gardens, the detached house
built by the Jearrads and Duncan, has been
demolished and its place taken by The Mount, a
block of flats built in 1962–4 to the designs of
Douglas Stephen and Partners. (ref. 27)
On the south side of the street some of the plots
purchased at the auction in 1823 remained unbuilt
upon for many years and often changed hands
several times before houses were erected. Of the
earliest surviving houses, Nos. 85–91 (odd) were
built shortly before 1830. (ref. 19) Of the later houses,
the most interesting is No. 77, which was built in
1882–3 by Perry and Company of Bow to the
designs of R. Stark Wilkinson to contain ten
studios, some with living quarters attached. (ref. 28)
The extension of the Metropolitan Railway
(now the Circle Line) to Kensington in the mid-1860's
led to the demolition of several houses
in the terraces built by the Halls. After the construction
of the railway some houses were rebuilt
in 1871 by the ubiquitous Campden Hill builder,
Jeremiah Little. (ref. 29) Of his houses, Nos. 6, 12 and
17 survive.
Campden Street
Campden Street comprised the main part of
William Ward's share of the land which he had
originally purchased jointly with John Punter in
1822. Little development took place there initially,
and by 1844 only twenty houses were listed
in the ratebooks, probably mostly built by Ward
himself. The rack-rental value of each house was
estimated to be approximately £14 and in almost
all cases the rates were paid by Ward. (ref. 19)
Shortly before 1850 a more concerted attempt
to complete building in the street took place.
For this Ward relied on other builders, principally
Henry Gilbert, who built the Campden Arms
public house (now No. 34 Campden Street) and is
variously described as a builder and a victualler,
and William Wheeler of Portobello Terrace,
builder. Gilbert was also responsible for Nos. 72–84
(consec.) on the south side. (ref. 30) William Ward
died in 1850. In his will (ref. 31) he directed his trustees
to grant leases of his 'Building Ground' for any
term not exceeding seventy-two years, and this
became the standard term for the leases granted to
Gilbert and Wheeler.
The buildings on the south side of the street to
the west of No. 72 were erected piecemeal over
several years on land which had been sold by Ward
to Walter Alexander Urquhart in 1832 to provide
extensive gardens to houses in Bedford Gardens
(see above).
The Byam Shaw School of Drawing and
Painting Limited (No. 70) was founded by John
Byam Shaw and Rex Vicat Cole and opened in
1910. The architect of the building was T.
Phillips Figgis. (ref. 32)
Peel Street
After John Punter and William Ward had purchased
the land on which Peel Street and Campden
Street were later laid out, they borrowed £4,800
from Nathaniel Robarts of Covent Garden, a
woollen-draper. (ref. 33) The firm of solicitors, W. and
J. W. Bromley, were probably instrumental in
arranging this loan, and when Punter and Ward
decided to partition their land, Joseph Warner
Bromley acted as their trustee. (ref. 9) As in the case of
the land purchased by William Hall, for whom the
Bromleys also acted, a part of Punter's and Ward's
land was put up for auction in 1823. In this instance
Peel Street, which Punter had acquired in
the division of the land, was sold in lots corresponding
to building plots.
In Peel Street the freeholds were much more
widely dispersed than in Bedford Gardens. Most
of the purchasers were individuals who were not
connected directly with the building trades and
their occupations were remarkably diverse,
including those of bootmaker, coachman, cow-keeper,
grocer, potato salesman, schoolmaster,
tailor, victualler and well-digger. (ref. 34) Among the
gentlemen and esquires was Joshua Flesher
Hanson, who was concerned in other developments
in Kensington. He bought four plots, only
to sell them again almost immediately before
houses had been erected on them. (ref. 35)
The largest number of plots to be bought by one
person was secured by William Humphrey Pilcher,
a solicitor, who paid £967 for twenty-one
building plots. (ref. 36) The amount paid by Pilcher
corresponds with the average price of just under
£50 for each plot realized at the auction. Punter
paid back £3,000 of the £4,800 which he and
Ward had owed to Robarts, and the remainder
appears to have been charged on Ward's share of
the Kensington Church Street frontage. (ref. 37)
Punter retained or bought in several plots,
principally on the north side of the street to the
west of the present No. 52. There he built eight
pairs of semi-detached cottages called Claremont
Place, which were among the first houses to be
erected in the street and were completed by 1826. (ref. 19)
He also built some houses on the south side of
Peel Street and on his share of the frontage to
Kensington Church Street, which had not been
auctioned. In 1824 he borrowed £2,000 on his
own account from Robarts on the security of this
property and by 1826 had increased his mortgage
debt to £4,000. (ref. 38) In 1829 he sold all of his remaining
property in The Racks area to John
Herapath, the railway journalist. Besides taking
over the mortgage debt of £4,000, Herapath paid
Punter £2,225. (ref. 39)
By 1834 few plots in Peel Street remained
undeveloped. (ref. 40) Some houses were erected under
long-term building leases at annual ground rents of
about £5, (fn. d) but most appear to have been built
under contract. Punter and Ward, who was a party
to several deeds relating to houses in Peel Street,
appear to have been involved in the building
operations, and other persons connected with
the building trades either bought plots directly or
were parties in conveyances to others. (fn. e) Most of
the original houses in Peel Street have sixteen-foot
frontages, although No. 41 (which had been
built by 1834) has a frontage of less than ten feet.
The houses are brick-faced and consist in the
main of two storeys without basements (Plate
38c). Their rack-rental value was originally as
low as £12 per annum. (ref. 42) In many cases the parish
rate collector only noted the names of house
owners, who paid rates for their tenants, (ref. 19) and it is
possible that some of these small houses were
multi-occupied from the time of their erection.
In only a few instances did the purchasers of
house plots live in the houses built on them. It
was not until John Herapath bought Punter's
remaining interest in the street that sewers were
provided, (ref. 43) and in 1856 reports were made to the
Vestry that pigs were being kept in a filthy condition
at one house in the street, while there were
'foul and offensive' privies at seven other houses. (ref. 44)
Several houses at the east end of the street were
demolished or rebuilt between 1865 and 1875
as a result of the construction of the Metropolitan
Railway, but the most extensive rebuilding
took place in 1877–8 when Campden Houses,
No. 80 Peel Street and No. 118 Campden Hill
Road were built in place of the sixteen semi-detached
houses which Punter had sold to John
Herapath in 1829. The seven blocks of flats
called Campden Houses (Plate 112a) were built
as labourers' dwellings for the National Dwellings
Society Limited by D. Laing and Company of
Westminster, whose tender was for £17,600.
The Society's architect was E. Evans Cronk. (ref. 45)
No. 80 Peel Street was built for Matthew Ridley
Corbett, the portrait and landscape painter, who
had purchased the site in 1876. (ref. 46)
Nos. 92–118 (even) Campden
Hill Road
When the building plots in Bedford Gardens were
auctioned in 1823 the westernmost plot on the
south side, which included a frontage to Campden
Hill Road, was bought by Joseph Gardner of
St. Marylebone, a butcher. Within a short time he
resold it to the solicitor William Bromley, and the
terrace comprising Nos. 92–100 (even) Campden
Hill Road and No. 95 Bedford Gardens (originally
known as Campden Hill Terrace) was built
under ninety-nine-year leases granted by Bromley
in 1826 to William Jones the elder and William
Jones the younger of High Street, Kensington,
builders. (ref. 47)
Nos. 108–116 (even) Campden Hill Road,
including the Windsor Castle public house, stood
on land which was allocated to William Ward in
the division of his and John Punter's joint
purchase in 1823. In 1826 Ward entered into an
agreement to grant a ninety-nine-year lease of the
site of the Windsor Castle to Douglas and Henry
Thompson of Chiswick, brewers, at an annual
ground rent of £10, and the public house was built
shortly afterwards. (ref. 48)
No. 118 Campden Hill Road:
West House
Plate 79
In 1876 George Henry Boughton, the artist,
purchased a site on the north side of Peel Street
at its junction with Campden Hill Road, on which
the westernmost pair of the semi-detached cottages
built by Punter then stood. (ref. 49) These were demolished
and Boughton engaged Richard Norman
Shaw to design him a house. The builders were
Braid and Company of Chelsea. (ref. 50)
Although West House, which was named after
Benjamin West, (ref. 51) has been much altered, several
interesting features of Shaw's design can still be
discerned. The house is built of stock brick with
dressings in both stone and cut and rubbed brickwork,
and several of the windows have stone
mullions and transoms. There is an extensive use
of tile-hanging in the upper of the two main
storeys. The smaller of the two gables on the
Campden Hill Road façade, now straight-sided,
was originally stepped.
The studio was on the first floor at the back.
It had a north-south axis, with a gallery at the
south end and a large window to let in north light
with a small balcony outside at the opposite end.
Nos. 99–135 (odd) Kensington
Church Street
The range of houses and shops punctuated by
street openings which is now numbered 103–135
(odd) Kensington Church Street was originally
called Peel Place. It was built along the valuable
frontage to Kensington Church Street (then called
Silver Street at this point) which had formed part
of the joint purchase of John Punter and William
Ward in 1822. The terrace was begun in 1823
and although Punter and Ward divided the frontage
between them in the partition of their land
in that year, there is evidence that they continued
to co-operate in their building work. Among the
earliest buildings erected was the original public
house on the site of the site of the present Churchill Arms,
for which a lease was granted in October 1823. (ref. 52)
The public house was originally known as the
Bedford Arms, but the present name was adopted
shortly afterwards and may have been a contraction
of 'Church Hill'.
In 1824 Ward sold the freehold of the part of
the frontage to the south of Bedford Gardens to
William Bromley. Nos. 99 and 101 Kensington
Church Street were built under ninety-nine-year
leases granted by Bromley in 1826 to William
Hall the younger, Charles Hall and Caleb Hall,
builders (No. 101), and to Jonathan Turner
and Jeremiah White of Soho, timber merchants,
by the direction of the Halls (No. 99). (ref. 53)
West Middlesex Water Works
Company Site
The land bounded on the south by the backs of
houses in Peel Street, on the west by Campden
Hill Road, on the north by Kensington Place, and
on the east by Kensington Church Street was
sold in 1809–10 by Alexander Ramsay Robinson
to the West Middlesex Water Works Company.
Within a month of purchasing a substantial
part of The Racks in July 1808 Robinson had
offered land to the company. The directors informed
the shareholders that the construction of a
reservoir on Campden Hill would give the company,
which had been incorporated as recently as
1806, a considerable advantage in competing with
the older established companies for the supply of
water both to Kensington and the parts of St.
Marylebone which were becoming increasingly
populated. Robinson, whose price was 1,500
guineas for approximately 3½ acres of land (i.e.
£450 per acre), was described as a 'Public Spirited
Individual'. The sale was concluded, and the
reservoir was built in 1809. (ref. 54)
Robinson had, however, retained a twenty-foot
wide strip of land fronting on to Campden Hill
Road, which was then only a footpath at this
point, intending to make it into a roadway. After a
few months the directors of the company found
that they needed this extra land, which adjoined
the highest point of their property, in order to
construct the works required to enable them to
supply water to the upper floors of their customers'
houses. In 1810 Robinson sold this strip to the
company, but the fact that he had by this time
been elected a director did not prevent him from
again charging 1,500 guineas, this time for a very
much smaller piece of land. He resigned from the
board shortly afterwards. (ref. 55)
By the 1920's the reservoir was no longer
needed by the Metropolitan Water Board, which
had taken over the operations of the West Middle-sex
Water Works Company in 1904. The site of
the reservoir itself, which was at the western, or
higher, end of the Board's property, was let in 1923
and shortly afterwards sold for use as a garage. (ref. 56)
The site of the Board's premises to the east of
the reservoir was sold to the London County
Council in 1924 and is at present occupied by the
buildings of the Fox School and Kensington
Institute. The school is named after Caroline
Fox, the sister of the third Lord Holland, who had
established a charity school on the north side of
St. Mary Abbots Mews (now Holland Park
Road) in 1842. In 1876 the school was transferred
to the School Board for London, which built new
premises in Silver Street (now Kensington Church
Street). In 1920 the London County Council
decided to widen Kensington Church Street
where the school buildings stood, and for this
reason purchased the present site from the Metropolitan
Water Board. The road widening proposals
were postponed, however, and it was not
until 1935 that work began on the present school
buildings. (ref. 57)
Edge Street
The eastern, or lowest, part of the land purchased
by the water works company in 1809 was not
needed for the reservoir or its associated buildings
and was let to tenants. In 1825, however, after
building developments had begun immediately to
the south, the company built a road and sewer and
sold the land by auction as building ground. The
road, which was originally known as Sheffield
Street (the subsidiary names of Edge Terrace,
Cousins' Cottages and Reservoir Cottages were
used later), is now called Edge Street after one of
the purchasers of land fronting it, Andrew Edge
of St. Clement Danes, esquire. The other purchasers
were William Bartlett of St. George's,
Hanover Square, victualler, Samuel and William
Cousins of Kensington, builders, and Richard
Dartnell of Kensington, gentleman. (ref. 58)
Edge Street forms a cul-de-sac and was generally
built up with small houses of a similar kind to those
in Peel Street. Some of these survive, particularly
on the north side, but at the eastern end of the
south side there were also groups of tiny cottages
arranged around courtyards. These were demolished
as a result of the construction of the
Metropolitan Railway in c. 1865 and the erection
of Campden Hill Mansions by the builders E.
and H. Harris of Kensington in c. 1907. (ref. 59) The
architect of Campden Hill Mansions was William
G. Hunt. (ref. 60)
The westernmost building on the south side of
Edge Street is the much-altered school established
in 1839 as the Kensington Infant National School
on land purchased by the Vestry and charity
school trustees. In 1865 the school was assigned
to the newly established district of St. George's,
Campden Hill, and became known as St. George's
School. It was closed in 1963 as a result of the
reorganization and enlargement of the nearby
Fox School, and the building is now used by the
Kensington Institute. (ref. 61)
Kensington Place to
Uxbridge Street
John Johnson, who purchased the northern part
of The Racks from John Jones in 1810, was
described as a paviour, but this hardly does justice
to the extent of his business activities. He quarried
stone on Dartmoor and became the contractor for
several major projects involving stonework, including
the construction of the breakwater at
Plymouth. He amassed a considerable fortune and,
besides The Racks area, he also owned property
in Earl's Court, Westminster, St. Pancras,
Ealing and other places outside Middlesex. (ref. 62)
Shortly after purchasing the land, Johnson
encouraged speculative building around the periphery
of the area, while using most of it as a
brickfield. The first houses (now demolished)
were erected on the north side of Uxbridge Street
under eighty-year leases granted in 1814, (ref. 63) but
relatively little building took place during these
early years. The building boom of the early
1820's stimulated development, however, and
William Inwood submitted a plan to the Westminster
Commissioners of Sewers showing a
proposed layout for Johnson's estate. (ref. 64) There is no
evidence that Inwood acted in any other capacity
for Johnson than as a surveyor, and his street
pattern was not adhered to. Stephen Bird constructed
sewers in Uxbridge Street and New
Street (now Newcombe Street), (ref. 65) but in the event
building was chiefly confined to these streets and
parts of the frontage to Plough Lane (now Campden
Hill Road). By the late 1820's the pace of
activity had slowed considerably—a general trend
reflected elsewhere in Kensington and other parts
of London.
In 1829 John Johnson transferred the bulk of
his property, including his land in Kensington,
to his sons, John Johnson the younger and
William Johnson, who carried on their father's
business. (ref. 66) The younger John Johnson became an
alderman of the City of London and was Lord
Mayor in 1845–6. (ref. 67)
In 1839 the Johnsons leased their brickfield,
which still occupied by far the largest part of the
area, to Benjamin and Joseph Clutterbuck, brickmakers,
for fourteen years at an annual rent of
£150 plus an extra 2s. 6d. for every 1,000 bricks
made above 1,200,000. Benjamin Clutterbuck,
who was working a brickfield on the Holland
estate (see page 105), shortly afterwards assigned
his interest to Joseph Clutterbuck, who became the
sole lessee. (ref. 68)
John Johnson the younger died in 1848. In his
will (ref. 69) he left his estates to his brother on trust to
sell them to settle his share of their joint debts. The
mortgage debts on The Racks and other property
amounted to £50,000, and William Johnson
immediately began to sell the freeholds of the
houses that were then standing in the area. These
did not command very high prices, however;
for instance, Edward Baker of Stamford Hill,
esquire, paid only £1,570 for the freeholds of at
least twenty-six houses. (ref. 70)
In 1850 Joseph Clutterbuck was granted
ninety-nine-year building leases by Johnson of
four houses at the east end of Kensington Place. (ref. 71)
Clutterbuck's lease of the brickfield was shortly
due to expire and by 1851 he had entered into an
agreement with Johnson to undertake building
developments on the land. The agreement itself
has not survived, and it is not known who was
responsible for determining the layout or for the
basic design of the houses themselves, which are
markedly similar although erected by a miscellany
of builders. Most of the houses consist of two
storeys above semi-basements with narrow frontages
of approximately sixteen feet, and are brickfaced
with stucco dressings in a uniform style
(Plate 41e). Clutterbuck himself applied to the
Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers for permission
to build over four thousand feet of
sewers, partly in continuation of the drainage
system begun by Stephen Bird and partly in the
new streets about to be laid out, viz: Ernest
Street (now Farm Place), William Street (now
Callcott Street), Johnson Street (now Hillgate
Street), Farm Street (now Farmer Street), St.
James or James Street (now Jameson Street) and
Dartmoor Street (now Hillgate Place). (ref. 72)
Clutterbuck died in 1851 or 1852 and although
several leases were granted to builders by the
direction of his widow, another developer became
involved. He was William Millwood of High Row
(Kensington Church Street), who was described
variously as a licensed victualler and a builder. (ref. 73)
The development proceeded with great rapidity
and over two hundred houses were erected in a
decade. A considerable number of builders were
employed, most of them building only a few
houses each. (fn. f) Johnson granted leases at terms
equivalent to ninety-nine years from 1850 at very
low ground rents, but he disposed of the freeholds
shortly after the houses had been completed. In
1855 Edward Baker, who had already purchased
several of the older houses, bought the freeholds
of over one hundred of the newly erected houses
for £8,200. (ref. 75)
The evidence of the census of 1861 suggests
that the majority of houses were multi-occupied
as soon as they were finished. (fn. g) Several houses contained
over twenty people, and in one house in
St. James Street thirty-two people seem to have
lived, spread among six households. In 1865
Henry Mayhew interviewed several workmen
who lived in the vicinity of Silver Street, possibly
in these houses, and they extolled the virtues of
living in 'the suburbs', where they could enjoy
the luxury of two rooms. (ref. 76) An observer commented
in the 1870's, however, that 'Johnsonstreet
is a dingy, ill-favoured slum', (ref. 77) and in 1900
the vicar of St. George's, Campden Hill, made an
appeal for the relief of the poverty of the inhabitants
of the area, in which he compared their conditions
of living to those in the East End of London. (ref. 78) The
upward social transformation which has taken
place in recent years, however, has been remarkable,
its most obvious outward manifestation
being the liberal application of paint in various
pastel shades to the brickwork of the houses.
The most extensive redevelopment has occurred
at the eastern end of the area. As a result of the
construction of Notting Hill Gate railway station,
which was opened in 1868, most of the houses on
the east side of St. James Street and the west side
of New Street had to be demolished. After the
station was completed new houses were erected
in 1871–4, the builder responsible being Walter
William Wheeler of Victoria Gardens, Notting
Hill. (ref. 79) The range consisting of Nos. 11–37 (odd)
Jameson Street survives as an example of his work.
The whole of New Street (now Newcombe
Street), with the exception of the chapel at the
corner of Kensington Place, has since been
demolished.
No. 23 Kensington Place, built in 1966–7,
maintains the scale and frontage line of its neighbouring
Victorian houses, although it provides a
sharp contrast in design and appearance. The
house, which consists of three storeys and has a
prominent circular staircase tower on the Hillgate
Street front, is faced with blue Staffordshire
bricks of a very dark colour. The architect was
Tom Kay. (ref. 80)
Bethesda Baptist Chapel,
Kensington Place
Plate 28a
This chapel was built under a ninety-eight-year
lease granted in 1824 by John Johnson the elder
to Thomas Worger of Kensington Gravel Pits, a
coachmaker. For most of its history, and possibly,
indeed, from its establishment, it has been used
by various Baptist sects. For several years during
the nineteenth century it was known as the Silver
Street Baptist Chapel on account of its proximity
to the northern part of Kensington Church
Street which was then called Silver Street, and on
the Ordnance Survey map of 1863–73 it is called
The Labourers' Church. (ref. 81)
Johnson Street Baptist Chapel
This building, which is now in commercial use, is
situated on the east side of Hillgate Street
(formerly Johnson Street) and is now known as
Hillgate House. It was built in 1851–2 under a
lease granted by William Johnson to Peter
William Williamson, its first pastor. The builder
was James Betts of St. Pancras. The chapel was
used by a congregation of Particular Baptists and
was described in 1872 as 'one of the plainest of
buildings for religious worship, low and uncommanding,
. . . a simple meeting-house with a
stuccoed front'. A less sympathetic observer commented
that it was 'a low, beetle-browed edifice,
bearing on its front the outward and visible signs
of the strictest sect of Calvinism, as though one
should have written thereupon the stern motto,
"All hope abandon, ye who enter here".' By
1882 the chapel had ceased to be used for worship,
and the building appears to have been refronted
shortly afterwards. (ref. 82)