The Estate of Robert Gunter the Elder and Younger, to 1864: The Boltons Area
In 1819 James Gunter had died, leaving his son Robert a
life-interest in his estate, which on Robert's death was to
pass to the latter's eldest son. Robert was empowered to
grant ninety-nine-year building leases, a right fortified by a
private Act of Parliament in 1820. (ref. 106) So far as this part of
Kensington was concerned, the property that had come
into Robert's hands was an area of land at D, E, I and O
(fig. 58), with a separate, less extensive, rectangle further
west at A, G. The former area was particularly useful,
being partly developed in villas at its northern end,
immediately adjacent to the new Thistle Grove (now part
of Drayton Gardens) on its east, and having access both to
Old Brompton Road and to Fulham Road — this last,
however, being limited at the junction with Fulham Road
to little more than the width of the communicating
entrance-way itself.
Robert Gunter lived at Earl's Court Lodge (at what is
now the northern corner of Earl's Court Road and Bolton
Gardens) from his father's death until his own in 1852. (ref. 55)
In 1831 his eldest son, also Robert, was born, and in 1833
his second son, James. In 1836 Robert senior bought the
plot L on fig. 58, in which the Gunters had long had a
mortgage interest (ref. 107) (see page 198). Apart from some
villa-building mentioned above, Robert Gunter's venture
into estate development in this locality seems to have
begun on his property in Chelsea, where in 1845–7 he had
what is now the northern end of Sydney Street built
between Fulham Road and Cale Street. (ref. 108) It is wholly in
the late-Georgian tradition of urban building, with
terraces of flat-fronted houses in stock brick over stuccoed
ground storeys. Two architects figured among his building
lessees there, in 1845–6: W. W. Pocock and George
Godwin the younger. George Godwin the elder, also an
architect, had a lease a few years later. (ref. 109)
On Robert Gunter's Kensington property the important
one of these names was the younger George Godwin's. In
1846 Robert Gunter made his will, in which Godwin was
named as one of the executors and one of the guardians of
Robert Gunter's daughter (the latter provision being later
changed). In 1851 a codicil to the will specifically
authorized Godwin to receive his professional fees as
architect from the trustees of Robert's estate despite
Godwin's status as executor. (ref. 110) This was very much to the
point, for by 1851, and still more by the time of Robert
Gunter's death in the following year, important building
operations were in progress on the large easternmost
portion of Robert's estate, in a different manner from that
of Sydney Street and doubtless showing George Godwin's
hand as designer. They were essentially in the suburban
mode of Thistle Grove, with a layout generally permitting
front gardens before the houses.
The scheme was evidently settled in outline by May
1849. It comprised a vesica-shaped layout of facing crescents (The Boltons), joined to Old Brompton Road by an
extension of the roadway serving South Bolton Gardens
and to Fulham Road by a new long road (Gilston Road),
with side roads corresponding to Tregunter Road, Priory
Walk and Milborne Grove (ref. 111) (fig. 58). The centre of the
vesica was to be a plantation divided into two by the site of
a church. In May 1849 Godwin set the whole enterprise
moving by intimating Robert Gunter's intention to the
Commissioners for Building New Churches, and soon a
church of his designing, with an out-of-town air about it,
was being raised, in advance of the houses themselves.
This is described on pages 232–4.
House-building 1850–2: Methods and Personnel
The houses built on the estate in 1850–2 were confined
to Robert Gunter's property lying east of the line of what is
now the roadway of The Little Boltons and (after a turn of
that boundary eastward along the south side of properties
in Tregunter Road) the line of Bolton Studios so far south
as No. 5 Gilston Road. The work proceeded fairly rapidly
and by the time of Robert Gunter's death in October
1852 the houses that were sufficiently completed to be
made over to their building lessees constituted the eastern
crescent of The Boltons, most of the south side of this part
of Tregunter Road, most of Gilston Road, most of
Milborne Grove, the north-east end of Harley Gardens,
and Priory Walk.
The procedure was generally by the normal granting of
leases to building tradesmen or, sometimes, to their
nominees. The latter were often intending occupants. In
two respects particularly Robert Gunter's practice was to
be followed until almost the whole ground on his sons'
estates was covered a quarter of a century later. A separate
lease was granted of every house-plot, and no period of a
year or two's peppercorn rent was conceded to the lessee.
As in Sydney Street, Chelsea, the term granted was
generally eighty-one years, and that remained the usual
term in this part of the estate under his successors until the
early 1860's. Initially the term ran from 1850 but
ultimately the terms of the leases, which from the 1860's
became almost always ninety-nine years, gave expiry-dates
extending from 1931 to 1984.
House-building began in the summer of 1850. One of
these first operations was, as it happens, apparently at least
a partial exception to the leasing-procedure referred to
above. This was the building of the terrace of houses at
Nos. 1–12 Priory Walk and No. 26 Gilston Road (Plate
84a). Eight of these were begun in July and September
1850 by a builder, Robert Trower, who had an address in
Chelsea and had participated in the building of Sydney
Street. (ref. 112) The district surveyor's returns which record
the work at Priory Walk describe him as 'owner' as well as
'builder' but no building leases to him have been found.
Something also delayed the progress of the work. It was
1853, after Robert Gunter's death, when Trower began
the remaining houses, (ref. 113) and there were then only five of
these, to make a total (including the westernmost now
numbered 26 Gilston Road) of thirteen, although in 1851
Godwin had applied to the Metropolitan Commissioners
of Sewers on Gunter's behalf for leave for Trower to lay
drains from fourteen houses here. (ref. 114) In 1854 it was
necessary for Trower to rebuild Nos. 7 and 8 (ref. 115) and by
January 1855 Godwin as supervising architect had to invite
tenders 'for completing houses in Priory-grove' (as Priory
Walk was called until 1938). One of the other builders
active nearby, Charles Delay, submitted the lowest tender
of £2,259. (ref. 116) The only instance of a lease to a building
tradesman in this terrace had occurred in December 1854,
when trustees for the younger Robert Gunter's estate
granted one eighty-one-year lease, of No. 12, to Patrick
Buckley, a plumber and glazier of Brompton. (ref. 117) These
houses came into occupation in 1855–7. The earliest
resident, at No. 12, was an architect, J. H. Strudwick. (ref. 55)
Elsewhere in the streets developed in the elder Robert's
lifetime, in 1850–2, leases were granted, and predominantly to, or with the participation of, building tradesmen.
There were ten of these. Unlike John Glenn of Islington,
who, as well as working on St. Mary's Church, did two
estate buildings directly for Robert Gunter at the bottom
of Gilston Road, all of the ten had addresses in this part of
south-west London. The most important lessee, in terms
of the sites committed to him, was H. W. Atkinson of
Chelsea, builder, whose role as lessee in the eastern
crescent of The Boltons must be noticed separately below.
Three other Chelsea builders were John Atkinson and
Daniel Tidey (a bricklayer), who participated in the leasing
of Nos. 21 and 23 Gilston Road to the first occupants in
1851, (ref. 118) and Thomas Eames, who in 1852 received the
leases of Nos. 14 and 16 Gilston Road (and in 1854, after
the elder Robert Gunter's death, was a party to those of
Nos. 10, 12, 41 and 43). (ref. 119) Pimlico supplied H. J. Clarke
(later a bankrupt) at Nos. 13–23 (odd) Tregunter
Road (ref. 120) and Charles Delay at Nos. 13–19 (odd) Gilston
Road (ref. 121) in 1851–2. Each was a participating party to the
leases, which in Gilston Road were granted to a
'gentleman' and an 'esquire' buying two houses apiece
doubtless as an investment, and in Tregunter Road were
made to four of the first occupants, two of whom also
bought an adjacent house. James Bonnin, junior, of Alfred
(now Alexander) Place, who participated in the leases of
Nos. 3 and 4 Harley Gardens (Plate 83b) in 1851 to the
first occupants (that at No. 3 being J. S. Quilter, an
architect) (ref. 122) and who took the leases of Nos. 1 and 3
Tregunter Road in 1852, (ref. 123) was son of a notable builder
in Kensington. Thomas Holmes, a party to the leases of
Nos. 1–8 Milborne Grove to a baker in Pimlico and a
widow in Brompton (neither of whom were buying for
occupation), had an address in Hereford Square. (ref. 124) A
third very local man was Stephen Peirson of Elm Cottage,
Old Brompton, who built at least eight houses in Gilston
Road, probably Nos. 25–39 (odd, Plate 83d), in
1850–1. (ref. 125) He participated in 1851–2 in the leasing of
Nos. 25–35, mostly to non-occupants, (ref. 126) and was also
joined with John Atkinson or Daniel Tidey as a party to
the leasing of Nos. 21 and 23. (ref. 127) In 1853 he took three
leases in Sydney Street, Chelsea. (ref. 128) More significant in
that respect was the builder William Harding, of North
End, Fulham, the recipient or nominator of leases at Nos.
18–24 Gilston Road (Plate 83c, fig. 60) and Nos. 1 and
2 Harley Gardens (Plate 83a) in 1851–2. He had in
1846–51 been the building lessee on Robert Gunter's land
in Chelsea, at the Gunter Arms public house and other
properties nearby on the south side of the Fulham Road
and in Gunter Grove and Edith Grove, where George
Godwin's hand is evident as architect. (ref. 129)
Figure 60:
No. 24 Gilston Road, plans and elevations as in 1970. William Harding, builder, 1852
Generally the evidence of the building leases and that of
the district surveyor's returns agree on the identity of the
builder. An exception is that the fifteen leases of the chief
houses of this early development, on the eastern side of
The Boltons, were all made with H. W. Atkinson as the
sole participating builder, (ref. 130) whereas the district
surveyor's returns seem clear that the eight houses begun
in February 1851 were divided four and four between him
and the builder Daniel Tidey, and that of the remainder,
begun in August, Atkinson was responsible for four and
Tidey for three. (ref. 131) Atkinson was at that time in a
comparatively small way of business, employing only four
men and living in Cheyne Walk with only one servant.
Tidey employed fourteen men, but lived in a house in
Elystan Street that he shared with another couple, where
one young servant looked after his family of nine. (ref. 132) He
had some sort of hand in Nos. 21 and 23 Gilston
Road, (ref. 133) and later, before the common fate of bankruptcy
befell him, ventured largely in building at Belsize Park and
Chalk Farm. (ref. 134)
Figure 61:
No. 12 The Boltons, plans and elevation. H. W. Atkinson, building lessee, 1851
From what has been said of the transmission of leases
direct to 'lay' purchasers it is apparent that this undertaking of Robert Gunter was in general a success (unless
the uncertain evidence of Priory Walk is taken as an
exception). This is also suggested by the fairly short
interval of a year or two between the completion of the
houses in carcase and the filling-up of the streets with
ratepaying occupants. The designation of such owneroccupiers as are known smacks of respectability —
'esquires', 'gentlemen', architects, doctors, a jeweller, as
well as the spinster and widow. One of the earliest, and
longest staying, was John Wilkinson, senior partner in
Sotheby's and book-auctioneer, who was at No. 1 Harley
Gardens from 1851 until his death in 1894. (ref. 79) Another was
Wilkinson's friend, the scholar and bibliophile, J. O.
Halliwell-Phillipps, who was at No. 11 Tregunter Road
from 1856 until his death in 1889. (ref. 79) A younger brother of
George Godwin, James Godwin, an artist, was at No. 23
Tregunter Road from 1854 to 1876. (ref. 135)
The house-types chosen represented the 'mix' that was
to prevail over the whole area. There were comparatively
modest-sized houses in terraces (at that stage all arranged
with mirrored plans), a very few detached houses, and a
great emphasis on semi-detached houses often of large size.
The layout of streets was, with one great exception,
conventional, and this continued to be so as the network
spread westward. Apart from one late instance at Moreton
Gardens, the arrangement so popular in Kensington, of a
communal ornamental ground behind the houses, called
'Gardens', was not adopted on this side of Old Brompton
Road. The architecture, generally less harsh than it
became in the western streets, was also more frequently
screened and ameliorated by the greenery of front gardens.
The possible intention in 1851 to give Robert Gunter's
estate a perceptible 'entrance' from Fulham Road has been
noticed (see page 173). Gilston Road, which forms the
approach thence to the centrepiece of this part of Robert
Gunter's estate, still retains in a higher degree than some
other streets the dignity formerly given it by solid
balustraded front-garden walls and handsomely rusticated
gate-piers (Plate 79b).
The Boltons
The centrepiece is The Boltons. The plan was submitted
to the Commissioners of Sewers by George Godwin on
Robert Gunter's behalf in March 1850, when it showed
one more house on the western side than was built. (ref. 136) The
name Boltons was used by Godwin but seems not to occur
before 1850–1, when it was applied in that form to the
houses now so called and to the immediately surrounding
area, which was also known as Bolton's Field or Bolton's
Estate. (ref. 137) It presumably referred back to the family of
Boulton from whom James Gunter had acquired the land.
The eastern crescent, as has been seen, was erected in
1851–2 by the builders H. W. Atkinson and Daniel
Tidey. These big houses (Plates 81, 82a,82b, 82c, fig. 61)
constituted the boldest venture of Robert Gunter's enterprise here, which was considered, as Godwin himself
witnessed a quarter-century later, 'uncertain in its
results'. (ref. 138) Doubtless for that reason Gunter, exceptionally, conceded to Atkinson his first two years' tenure at half
the ground rent of £15 a house. (ref. 139) As it happens, this
crescent was quickly successful in attracting occupants.
The western crescent did not, however, follow until after
Robert Gunter's death, when in 1856 an important transaction introduced to the Gunters' estates a builder who
was to become one of South Kensington's bigger operators. In August of that year the younger Robert Gunter
agreed to lease a large area to John Spicer, a builder in
Pimlico. It embraced not only the western crescent of The
Boltons but also the north side of Tregunter Road so far
west as The Little Boltons and the east side of The Little
Boltons (then called Tregunter Grove) so far north as the
grounds of White Cottage (later Rathmore Lodge). (ref. 140)
The western crescent (Plates 80, 82d, figs. 62, 65f)
was leased to Spicer as he finished the houses, working
from north to south, between 1857 and 1860. (ref. 141) They
were a little slower to be taken than the houses in the
eastern crescent, although substantially similar to them. (ref. 54)
In neither crescent, so far as the lease-plans show, were all
the ground floors identically arranged, but one general
difference between the sides was that in Spicer's houses
the ground floors were planned so that the staircase
compartment was not aligned on the front door, as it was in
the houses in the eastern crescent (figs. 61–2). The
planning of some of Spicer's houses here followed a lead
given in Gilston Road.
Another difference was that at three of his pairs of
houses on the west side Spicer carried the outer bays up to
the full height of the house, instead of leaving them as
one-storey wings. Nos. 20–25 thus form more massive
six-bay blocks than the other pairs of houses in either
crescent (Plate 80a, 80b). Most of the one-storey wings in
both crescents have, however, been heightened by a storey,
some in very recent times.
The eastern crescent filled up in 1852–4, the western
in 1858–65. (ref. 54)
The first occupants were very respectable if not
remarkable. Two army officers (one of whom was to have a
command in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny), an
artist (Charles Vacher at No. 4), an amateur artist and
author (John Hughes, father of Thomas, the author of Tom
Brown's Schooldays, at No. 7), a ship-owner, a landowner, a
notable physician (Benjamin Golding, founder of the
Charing Cross Hospital, at No. 28), the editor of the Art
Journal, Samuel Carter Hall, at No. 21, a clergyman at
No. 18, and Mrs. Gunter herself, the elder Robert's
widow, at No. 16, indicate the tone. (ref. 142)
Godwin later said that the first houses in 'Boltons' were
sold in the early doubtful days for so little as £1,350, which
by the mid 1870's had risen to £3,000. (ref. 138) Prices at the end
of the fifties are indicated by the £2,200 paid for No. 28
in 1859, (ref. 143) the £2,280 for No. 20 in 1861, (ref. 144) and the
£2,300 for No. 7 in 1858. (ref. 145) The last was then valued at
£175 per annum if let at a rack rent. A sale advertisement
of that year details the attractions of this 'Villa Residence,
elegantly finished, and in a most delightful situation'. One
was the privilege of admission to the 'select Promenade
and Ornamental Pleasure Grounds' in the centre, adjacent
to the church, for which the ground landlord added £2 to
the ground rent. The elevation was 'neat and pleasing',
with plate glass in the windows. Water was laid on as high
as the top (second) floor, and there was a 'Well of capital
Spring Water' in the basement. Water closets were provided at that level and on the ground and first floors. As
usual the butler's bedroom was in the basement but his
pantry was on the ground floor. The outbuildings, abutting
on Cresswell Place, included 'a large Room used for
Gymnastics'. (ref. 146) The auctioneers were, however, unable to
speak, as they would have done a few years later, of the
access to underground railway stations, and the previous
occupant, John Hughes, writing as one of the pioneer
residents in The Boltons about 1853 had humorously
referred to it as 'this wild back-settlement, 2 miles beyond
Hyde Park Corner . . . I consider myself, for all social
purposes, as living in the country, out of the pale of the Red
Book'. (ref. 147) But The Boltons achieved and has maintained a
steadily respectable social level. So much so, indeed, that
when in 1937 a telephone exchange was about to be built in
the northern limb of The Boltons Sir Ronald Gunter's
solicitors pleaded (unavailingly) with the Postmaster
General to put it somewhere else, 'where the staff of a
Telephone Exchange would mingle unobtrusively with the
normal type of foot-passenger.' (ref. 148)
A notable feature of The Boltons is its shape. Facing
crescents can be found on Horwood's map of London in
the 1790's — generally, however, with roads traversing
them. A very humble precursor of the vesica shape with a
planted centre was The Oval at Hackney but on a very
much smaller scale than The Boltons, and with terrace
houses. In The Boltons the houses, with the exception of
Nos. 15 and 28 at the southern end (and disregarding
Nos. 29 and 30 which are not historically part of The
Boltons) are semi-detached. They demonstrate, like some
of the houses in Kensington Palace Gardens of a few years
earlier, the high social and economic level at which this
arrangement was acceptable.
Another remarkable feature of The Boltons is the
spaciousness of the whole layout, where twenty-eight
houses with their private and communal gardens (the latter
admittedly accommodating a church) occupy some eleven
and a half acres. On a map the contrast with the
comparative density of the surrounding streets is very
noticeable. Much of this is due to the size of the back
gardens: it is a private type of suburbanism different in
effect from the Gunters' 'Gardens' north of Old Brompton
Road and those on the Smith's Charity estate.
The exteriors of the houses, of a distinctly worldly cast,
except perhaps for the plain relaxed villa at No. 28, present
the usual contrast to the style of the accompanying church
(Plates 80, 81, fig. 61). Discounting later alterations, the
pairs of houses are three storeys high under the overhanging eaves of a shallow slated roof and each house is
two bays wide with a slightly recessed one-storey wing (or,
at Nos. 20–25, three bays wide). The entrance, dressed
with a Roman Doric portico, is placed at the outer bay of
each house in the eastern crescent; and in the western
crescent is either placed in the one-storey wing or (at Nos.
20–25) grouped with the adjacent entrance in the centre
of the block. Fully stuccoed in front, the houses have the
separate elements of the façade strongly stressed. The
first-floor windows are surmounted by elaborately bracketed straight hood-moulds crowned with crestings of
scrolls and acanthus leaves, and the corners of each main
block are accentuated by heavily faceted quoins.
Figure 62:
No. 18 The Boltons, plan as originally built. John Spicer, builder, 1857.
In their general composition as stuccoed semi-detached
houses under eaves-cornices and with slightly recessed
wings the houses in The Boltons resemble a run of houses
begun about 1847 at Ealing, on the north-east side of the
road called The Park, on the estate of General Sir Edward
Kerrison of Oakley Park in Suffolk. (ref. 149) Two of these in
particular, Nos. 21 and 22 (both now altered), had
additionally distinctive cresting on the hood-moulds of the
ground-floor windows and accentuated quoins that
especially call to mind similar features at The Boltons. (ref. 150)
Good evidence indicates that George Godwin had a hand
in the design of these houses and tried there some ideas
used at Brompton. This is strongly suggested by the close
conformity of the ground-floor plans of some of the houses
in The Park to those of houses in and around The
Boltons (ref. 151) and is virtually established by the identity of
office-style in the draughtsmanship of lease-plans for
Ealing and Brompton. (ref. 152)
The treatment of the interiors in The Boltons, so far as
what survives can show us, was less assertive than that of
the façades. The plans made no great visual feature of the
staircase and allowed the large reception rooms to create
the chief effect. The walls, ceilings and chimneypieces
were not very greatly elaborated, each being supplied with
adequate, conventional, but by no means consistent,
adornments from a mixed menu of 'florid Classic' and
'after Owen Jones'. The occupants' furniture, soft
furnishings, mirror-ware and china were evidently
depended upon further to heighten the 'tout ensemble'.
Probably the best 'period' interior surviving in The
Boltons is at No. 12, where the double drawing-rooms on
the main floor have painted doors, gilded cornices, and
pretty 'aesthetic' tiles in the fireplaces which reveal that the
scheme of decoration dates probably from around 1880
(Plate 82a, 82c, fig. 61).
In 1858 a resident at No. 9 The Boltons, J. Keating,
employed an architect, Thomas Burton, to design or
perhaps only to supervise the building of two villas for him,
evidently as a speculation, in the immediate neighbourhood. They were quite substantial, for the lowest tender
for the work from builders was at £3,150. (ref. 153) Where they
were is uncertain.
Architects and Builders
Nevertheless, the probability is that all the houses here in
The Boltons and adjacent streets were designed by
George Godwin as architect and surveyor to Robert
Gunter and later to his two sons Robert and James. From
at least the later 1860's, when the work had moved
westward, George Godwin was joined by his younger
brother Henry, who continued for at least a little while as
the Gunters' surveyor or 'agent' after George Godwin's
death in 1888. (ref. 154) Henry, however, only came of age in
1852, when George Godwin was thirty-seven, and this
first phase of the work here in the early and mid fifties is
perhaps likely to have been in the elder brother's hands
alone.
A view of the 'styles' employed in these streets in and
around The Boltons gives a rather bewildering impression
of the shuffling and dealing-out of architectural motifs,
defeating the question whether particular groups of houses
compared with each other are 'like' or 'unlike'. This
characteristic, if it can be so called, of mixed motifs and an
ambiguity of effect continued in all the later work
hereabouts under the 'Godwin' auspices, and not only on
the Gunters' estates.
Here in the fifties, with a greater number of building
tradesmen taking leases than later, it is evident that their
areas of activity had for the most part little significance in
the distribution of stylistic devices. One important and
distinctive motif at that period, for example, was the
peculiar form of curved hood-mould over segmentalheaded window-openings, which occurs at the end
pavilions of Priory Walk (Robert Trower, Plate 84a), Nos.
3 and 4 Harley Gardens (James Bonnin, Plate 83b) and
Nos. 9 and 11 Gilston Road (Thomas Holmes), as well as in
the work of other builders at the Gunters' Edith Grove,
Gunter Grove and Netherton Grove in Chelsea. Holmes's
work at Nos. 9 and 11 Gilston Road does not resemble his
houses at Nos. 1–8 Milborne Grove; nor does Thomas
Eames's in Gilston Road at Nos. 10 and 12 resmble his
other houses there at Nos. 14, 16, 41 and 43. Eames's No.
10 is, however, in the same Cheltenham-Swiss-Italianate
style (otherwise very little used in the whole area) as William
Harding's detached houses at Nos. 22 and 24 Gilston
Road (Plate 83c, fig. 60). These last have a grouping of
triple round-headed windows with prominent keystones in
common with Harding's semi-detached houses at Nos. 1
and 2 Harley Gardens (Plate 83a), but this in no way makes
the Gilston Road houses resemble the late-Georgian
'stock-brick-box' style of the pair in Harley Gardens. For a
stronger hint at the insignificance, stylistically, of the
identity of the building lessee in this eastern part it is
necessary to look forward a few years to the leases granted in
1861–3 to local builders, Benjamin and Thomas Bradley, of
contiguous plots at Nos. 9–14 Harley Gardens and Nos.
9–14 Milborne Grove (Plate 84c). (ref. 155) (Subsequently, the
Bradleys built Slaidburn Street in Chelsea for the younger
Robert Gunter. (ref. 156) ) At the Harley Gardens houses, which
were separated from the earlier-built houses in Harley
Gardens by a vacant site and from the Bradley's Milborne
Grove houses by the width of a roadway, a fiercer and more
up-to-the-minute type of detailing was used than at the
existing houses in either street. But for the new Milborne
Grove houses, which immediately adjoined the existing
terrace at Nos. 1–8, the urbane style of those houses was
continued. That this discrimination was at George
Godwin's prompting as the younger Robert Gunter's
architect seems to be shown by the resemblance of the
motifs used at Nos. 9–14 Harley Gardens to those being
employed at the same time in the work of different builders
on a different property at Redcliffe Road (Plate 87a),
where Godwin as the instigator of that undertaking was
the connecting link with Harley Gardens.
Figure 63:
Fig. 63. Elevations of houses built on the estates of Robert and James Gunter. a. No. 7 Harley Gardens, 1867 b. No. 36 Tregunter Road, 1865 c. No. 20 Tregunter Road, 1865 d. Nos. 10–16 (even) Tregunter Road (type), 1859
The correctness of the simplest and most obvious
hypothesis regarding the source of the tantalizing mix of
styles in this whole area—that it originated in the
Godwins' office throughout—is supported by the similarity of draughtsman's style in the ground-floor plans on the
leases memorialized in the Middlesex Deeds Registry.
That some, and therefore presumably all, of these were in
physical fact supplied by the Godwins is shown in the later
correspondence of the builders Corbett and McClymont,
which speaks of parchment leases being sent to the
Godwins' office for plans to be drawn upon them. (ref. 157) The
same office-style of plan occurs on the leases granted by
George Godwin to a builder, Edwin Curtis, on his own
freehold in Fulham Road and Redcliffe Road (see page
175).
House-building 1852–63
To revert to Robert Gunter the elder, at his death in
October 1852 the estate which had come to him from his
father, James, passed to trustees for his eldest son Robert,
then about twenty-one, and the property he had himself
bought, at L on fig. 58, was bequeathed for the second son
James, who came of age two years later. (ref. 110) Both sons were
destined for military careers, in the Dragoon Guards, and
in 1854–6 both fought in the Crimean War. In 1854
Robert, by a deed to which his brother James was a
witness, barred the entail of his estate, and in the same
month conveyed it in trust to James and the brother of
their step-mother, W. E. Maude. In 1856 James, Maude
and the family's solicitor, J. L. Tomlin, conveyed it back to
Robert, who in turn conveyed it to Tomlin to his, Robert's,
own use. In 1858 James similarly conveyed all his land in
trust to Robert and Maude, and they reconveyed it in
1862. (ref. 158) This was not the last of the legal to-and-froing,
which did not, however, affect the brothers' separate
equitable ownership of their properties. Since 1854 both
had been advised by a solicitor, J. L. Tomlin (in succession
to J. L. Wetten), who handled their affairs throughout the
long campaign of building development, himself lived in
Bolton Gardens from 1866, and acquired freehold
property hereabouts in his own right. The dealings of
Robert and James at his guidance are, in the absence of
evidence to the contrary, suggestive of a co-operative
relation between the fraternal property-owners.
In 1857 building had advanced enough for Robert to
raise a mortgage of £10,000 on his property, redeemed in
the same year, and then later in the year no less than
£56,000 on the security of land north and south of Old
Brompton Road. (Part of this mortgage was paid off in
1868 and the rest in 1878.) (ref. 159) In 1857 he moved from
Earl's Court to Wetherby Grange in Yorkshire. There he
was a prominent landowner, colonel commandant of a
Yorkshire regiment, and from 1884 Conservative Member
of Parliament for the Barkston Ash division. (ref. 160)
The continuation of the elder Robert's development has
already been touched upon. At Nos. 5–11 (odd) Tregunter
Road Peirson had the leases in 1853–4 of four houses
filling-in between Bonnin's and Clarke's. (ref. 161) His houses
'went' decidedly quicker than Bonnin's had done. (One
difference was that his houses were planned in the
traditional London way in so far as they had a long
entrance-and-staircase-compartment on one side and on
the other front and back reception rooms which could
communicate, whereas Bonnin had placed his staircase
compartment between the front and back rooms.) In 1854
Eames or his nominees had leases of Nos. 10, 12, 41 and
43 Gilston Road. (ref. 162) At Nos. 9 and 11, where Holmes had
had a lien on the latter site in 1852, (ref. 163) the leases were
made in 1855 to a 'laceman' in the City, who was the first
occupant of No. 9. (ref. 164) In the same year the detached house
at the south-east end of Tregunter Road, now numbered
29 The Boltons, was leased to its first occupant: (ref. 165) the
builder employed by the lessee was Walter Taverner of
Bayswater. (ref. 166) B. and T. Bradley's work finishing Milborne
Grove with Nos. 9–14 in 1861–2, and adding to Harley
Gardens with Nos. 9–14 in 1862–3 has been mentioned
above. (Later, in 1867, the gap in Harley Gardens,
hitherto occupied by an additional garden to a large house,
The Grove, at No. 98 Drayton Gardens, was filled by two
builders involved in the works then going forward further
west, Thomas Hussey and Thomas Huggett, both of
Kensington. (ref. 167) The two pairs of semi-detached houses
built by them at Nos. 5–8 Harley Gardens are in a more
full-blooded Victorian manner than the houses around
them, with features suggestive of Redcliffe Square (Plate
86a, fig. 63a).
John Spicer, Builder
The largest work of continuation, however, was the building
of the north-east end of Tregunter Road and the east side of
what is now The Little Boltons (formerly Tregunter Grove)
by John Spicer, on the western part of the large property
agreed in 1856 to be leased to him for his side of The
Boltons. At the south end, Nos. 2–16 (even) Tregunter
Road (Plate 83e, fig. 63d) and Nos. 2 and 4 The Little
Boltons were leased to Spicer or his nominees in
1857–9. (ref. 168) Nos. 6–20 and 22–36 (even) The Little
Boltons followed in 1862 and 1864 (Plate 85b). (ref. 169) At No.
36 The Little Boltons, a detached house near the north
end, Spicer let (or rather sub-let) the house to the first
occupant, in 1866, for £125 per annum. (ref. 170) All these
houses of Spicer's were occupied fairly promptly. (ref. 54) The
first residents on this side of The Little Boltons included
two clergymen, a lady of title, a barrister, a government
clerk, a civil engineer, a brewer, a West India merchant, at
least one man of no profession, and a 'dealer in fancy
goods'. (ref. 171) They were provided, by Godwin and Spicer,
with some of the least elaborated house-fronts in the
neighbourhood. Only the eaves-brackets, here and at Nos.
2–16 (even) Tregunter Road, catch the eye.
In 1859–66 Spicer also received leases for Bolton
Mews, now Bolton Gardens Mews — rather squeezed-in,
to the curtailment of the gardens of Nos. 16 and 17 The
Boltons. (ref. 172)
Much later, in 1883, when George Godwin in his
capacity as editor of The Builder published Spicer's
obituary, he spoke of him with great respect. (ref. 173) Just
conceivably, and exceptionally, the architectural sobriety
which characterized Spicer's work here at this time, once
he had done with The Boltons, in some way reflects his
influence in a matter of design.
This aspect of Spicer's house-building is even more
noticeable in the next major undertaking of Robert Gunter
on his property east of The Little Boltons. This was the
building of eight large houses on a detached site fronting
Old Brompton Road at Nos. 1–8 Bolton Gardens, where
Spicer was granted leases in 1863–4 (Plate 79c, fig.
65a). (ref. 174) Their rectitude of composition is by no means
characteristic of Godwin, however appropriate for houses
whose first occupants included a solicitor, two barristers
and a senior civil servant. The arrangement was perfectly
normal, as four pairs of semi-detached houses facing the
road, with ample gardens behind each. They looked across
the road, however, to a large planted enclosure, leased by
Robert Gunter to Spicer, and thus formed part, both in
name and in the minds of the house's occupants, of the
greater portion of Bolton Gardens which was laid out by
Spicer in the course of the next few years on the northern
part of Gunter's estate, to be discussed in volume xlii of
the Survey of London. (ref. 175) These were some of the 'best'
houses in the area. In 1870 they were assessed appreciably
higher for rating purposes than the houses in The Boltons
— perhaps, however, chiefly because they were newer.
The first occupant at No. 1 was the colonial civil servant
and economist, Sir Louis Mallet. An even more significant
token of approbation was given by the residence here of
J. L. Tomlin, Robert Gunter's own lawyer, who moved to
a new house at No. 5 from St. James's Street in 1866. (It is
perhaps a sign of a confidential relationship between
Tomlin and Spicer that when two years later the former set
up in a new office at No. 9 Old Burlington Street Spicer's
son, himself a solicitor, moved to the same address from
the City and stayed there for some three years.) At No. 4
Bolton Gardens the first occupant was Albert Silber, a
manufacturer of lamps and patent gas-burners. (ref. 81) Mallet
paid £3,370 for the lease of his house, and the barrister
Rupert Potter £3,700 for his next door at No. 2. (ref. 176) This
latter house was also the residence of the owner of the
most famous name in Bolton Gardens, Peter Rabbit,
whose mistress, Beatrix Potter, was born there in 1866 and
remained until her marriage in 1913. (ref. 177)
The site of Nos. 1–6 Bolton Gardens is now taken into
that of the Bousfield School. No. 8 retains the tactfully
unobtrusive westward extension given it in 1876 by the
architect E. N. Clifton. (ref. 178)
Occupants in 1871
The census of 1871 gives a comparative view of some of
the streets so far discussed, in the heyday of southern
Kensington. (ref. 179) In The Boltons the 26 houses in 'normal'
occupation on the night of the census contained in all 87
members of the owners' families, outnumbered by the 97
servants (including in the latter two governesses). Among
the servants were four butlers and two coachmen. Five
heads of households were widows, five were merchants,
active or retired, and two clergymen. The others whose
designation is known included one industrialist (a brickmaker), a civil engineer, two landowners, a house-property
owner, a shipowner and broker, a magistrate, a retired
servant of the East India Company and an artist.
On the eastern side of The Little Boltons the 16 houses
in normal occupation accommodated 57 members of the
'family' and 48 servants, including one butler and two
governesses but no coachmen. Four heads of households
were widows, two were barristers, two active or retired
merchants, one an industrialist (a brewer), one a 'dealer',
one a clerk in a public office, one a civil engineer, one was
of no profession, two were architects and one was a
professor of music. (One of the architects, William
Harvey, aged thirty, had a family of six brothers and sisters
living with him.)
In Gilston Road 27 houses had a lower ratio of servants
again, accommodating 94 'family' and 53 servants,
including one butler and no governesses or coachmen.
Two of the houses had lodgers in them. Otherwise the
type of occupant was rather similar. The largest single
class of head of household was again the widow (five).
There were two army officers (one a lieutenant-general),
again one industrialist (a bootmaker), two merchants and
one civil engineer. There were two architects. Four
declared themselves 'of no profession', 'independent', or
'gentleman'. There were two surgeons (one retired from
the East India Company), a stockbroker, a ship and
insurance broker, a 'mercantile clerk', and a thirty-twoyear-old 'student at law'. There was again a slight
representation of the humanities with an author and
botanist (Robert Fortune) at No. 9. At No. 13 the owner
was secretary to a goldmining company and at No. 43 a
restaurant proprietor.
At the 12 terrace houses in normal occupation in Priory
Walk the situation was rather different. There 55 'family'
lived with 16 servants, although this ratio was distorted by
the unusual establishment at No. 7, where the head, a
professor of fencing, had nine of his family living with him
and no servants at all. Apart from four female heads of
households Priory Walk seems to have attracted the 'clerk'
— doubtless of the top-hatted Victorian rather than the
billycock-hatted Edwardian status.
In none of these streets was any house in the occupation
of more than one family.
Testimony, of a kind, to the respectability of this area in
1871 is the presence at No. 14 Harley Gardens in 1870–2
of 'Sir Roger Charles D. Tichborne', that is, Arthur Orton
of Wapping, who was then pursuing his sensational claim
to the baronetcy until its collapse in court in March 1872.
He and his family of five occupied the house with a young
lady's-companion, a butler, a nurse and three other
servants. The 'Claimant' was 'bravely championed by the
tradespeople in the neighbourhood'. (ref. 180)