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Survey of London: Volumes 29 and 30, St James Westminster, Part 1
These volumes cover the part of the parish of St James which lies south of Piccadilly, between Haymarket and Green Park. St James's was post-Restoration London's Court suburb, laid out during the reign of Charles II. The story of its development is fully explored, with accounts of Wren's parish church, the aristocratic houses in St James's Square, the theatres on the west side of Haymarket, the gentlemen's clubs of Pall Mall, and some of the West End's most prestigious private palaces, including Spencer House and Bridgwater House.
Survey of London: Volume 27, Spitalfields and Mile End New Town
Spitalfields is well known for the handsome silk-weavers' houses in and around Spital Square, Fournier Street and Elder Street, with their distinctive weavers' garret workshops. The greater part of this volume is devoted to a detailed account of these houses. The area's principle monument (Nicholas Hawksmoor's masterpiece, Christ Church, Spitalfields (1714-29)) is also studied in detail, and its complex building history explained, making use of the then recently discovered archives of the Commissioners for Building Fifty New Churches. In addition, the volume takes in the adjoining suburb of Mile End New Town, an area of eighteenth-century origin, largely rebuilt in the late nineteenth century, and at the time of writing undergoing extensive redevelopment for public housing. Spitalfields Market, and the well-known brewery of Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Company, are also described.
Survey of London: Volume 36, Covent Garden
Covent Garden has a special significance as the birth-place of modern town planning in London. Inigo Jones's Italianate Piazza, designed in the 1630s for the 4th Earl of Bedford, was unlike anything the capital had seen before, and provided the prototype for the laying-out of London's suburban estates for centuries to come. Based on a detailed study of the surviving fabric and the Bedford Estate's archives, this volume recounts the story of the Piazza's evolution (and eventual redevelopment), including the building of St Paul's Church, the area's principal monument. In addition to the Piazza and surrounding streets, the volume also describes the buildings of the Covent Garden Market, at the time the nation's principal market for horticultural produce, since removed to Nine Elms, Battersea.
Survey of London: Volume 37, Northern Kensington
This is first of the Survey's four volumes to cover Kensington, an area synonymous with Victorian architecture. It concerns the area to the north of Kensington High Street, extending as far as Kensal Green, where large-scale building development took place between the 1820s and 1880s. Here can be traced in some detail the evolution of London's nineteenth-century suburban housing. Among the many examples described are the fashionable Italianate villas of the 1820s and '30s in Campden Hill and Holland Park; the opulent large mansions of 'Millionaires Row' in Kensington Palace Gardens; and the red-brick 'Domestic Revival' artists' houses of the 1860s and after in the Melbury Road area. Victorian ecclesiastical design can also be studied in its many variants, in the area's churches, chapels and convents, including the Greek Revival architecture of Kensal Green Cemetery.
Survey of London: Volume 42, Kensington Square To Earl's Court
This volume completes the Survey's study of Kensington. It describes the expansion of building development south and west towards Earl's Court from the original late-17th-century 'Old Court Suburb' around Kensington Square and Kensington High Street. The area has a great variety of house-types and architectural styles: surviving 1680s houses in Kensington Square; brick-and-stucco Regency terraces in and around Edwardes Square; George & Peto's large and flamboyant Flemish-inspired brick-and-terracotta family homes in Harrington and Collingham Gardens; and later mansion flats. In addition to the residential architecture, the volume also traces the history of the commercial and light-industrial quarter to the west, near the Kensington Canal and West London Railway; the fashionable shopping area on the south side of the High Street, with its well-known department stores, such as Barkers and Derry & Toms; and a rich collection of churches and chapels. The volume ends with a retrospective chapter, considering some of the themes and building trends common to Southern Kensington as a whole.
Survey of London: Volume 23, Lambeth: South Bank and Vauxhall
Published to coincide with the Festival of Britain Exhibition of 1951, this volume covers the northern, riverside portion of Lambeth, between Waterloo and Vauxhall Bridges. As well as giving the history of the Festival site itself, the book focuses on the venerable buildings and monuments then scattered among the mostly nineteenth-century houses, dwellings and factories. Chief of these is the Archbishop of Canterbury's residence, Lambeth Palace, which is described and illustrated in detail. Other buildings covered include the Church of St John, Waterloo Road, and some of the eighteenth-century terrace-houses in Kennington Road and Lambeth Road.
Survey of London: Volume 26, Lambeth: Southern Area
Volume 26 completes the Survey's study of Lambeth parish, taking in Kennington, Vauxhall, Stockwell and Brixton, and the outlying districts of Denmark Hill, Herne Hill, Tulse Hill and West Norwood. Much of this area is classic suburbia of the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - late-Georgian terraces in Kennington; detached and semi-detached villas in Brixton, Denmark Hill and Herne Hill. There are two interesting planned estates: Stockwell Park, a Regency 'rus in urbe', and Angell Town, with its heavier, early Victorian manner. As well as houses, the volume also describes many public buildings, churches and chapels, including three Greek-Revival 'Waterloo' churches in Brixton (St Matthew's), Kennington (St Mark's) and Norwood (St Luke's).
Survey of London: Volumes 43 and 44, Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs
The dockland parish of All Saints', Poplar, encompasses the ancient hamlet of Poplar itself, the old shipbuilding centre of Blackwall, and the former industrial districts of Millwall and Cubitt Town. Poplar's story is one of development and redevelopment on both the grand and the comparatively small scale, driven in the nineteenth century by mercantile interests and manufacturing, and after the Second World War by de-industrialization and the obsolescence of the Thames-side docks. The East and West India and Millwall Docks system is discussed in detail, together with the riverside wharves and works, and the massive regeneration, still in progress, which followed the creation of the Isle of Dogs Enterprise Zone in 1982. Among important individual buildings described is the seventeenth-century church of St Matthias, a rarity from the Interregnum, built for the East India Company. A major subject is public housing, which includes the famous Lansbury Estate, built in association with the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Survey of London: Volume 5, St Giles-in-The-Fields, Pt II
Surveys the notable buildings of the parish, including the church of St Giles-in-the-Fields, the hospital of St. Giles, and Freemasons' Hall. Lincoln's Inn Fields is covered in volume 3.
Survey of London: Volume 1, Bromley-By-Bow
Describes the parish of Bromley, including the church of St. Mary, the manor houses, and the Old Palace of Bromley. The Introduction gives a detailed account of the circumstances in which the Survey was founded.