74 Wood Street including the western boundary wall and south-east pier, High Barnet, London

Summary

Early C19 villa, from the early-C20 becoming a veterinary hospital. Long single-storey stable/carriage range* added to the rear by 1840 and another single-storey range* added to the western elevation of the main range by 1913.

Description

MATERIALS: orange brick (painted white to the north part of the east elevation) in Flemish bond with stuccoed front (south) and east elevations to the main range. Hipped slate-covered roof to the main range and pitched roof to the eastern part of the north extension. Fenestration is a mix of later horned, and probably original, un-horned sash windows.

PLAN: the original early-C19 two-storey main range has a T-plan facing south. A long mid-C19 single-storey former stable/carriage range* with a pitched clay-tiled roof and late-C20 flat-roofed southern extension*, runs east-west in the north-west of the site adjoined to the east by a contemporary link block with a pitched slate roof. In the north-east corner is a small late-C19 flat-roofed extension*. An early-C20 single-storey extension* with a pitched, corrugated metal-covered, roof and flat-roofed northern outshut* adjoins the west elevation of the main range. On the eastern elevation of the rear part of the main range is another flat-roofed extension of C20 and C21 date*.

On the ground floor, the main entrance opens into a large hall with the main stair in the north-east corner. To the east, through a modern enlarged opening, is a single room with a modern receptionist’s counter. On the west side of the hall, the original single room, reached via a possibly original door opening, has been partitioned into two consulting rooms divided by a central corridor which runs into the single storey extension to the west and north through later extensions along the west side of the rear part of the main range. The rear part of the main range has a large single room to the south (giving access to rooms in the extensions on the east side of the building and to a small cellar under the rear part of the main range) and three small, reconfigured, rooms to the north with a secondary stair to the first-floor in the north-west corner.

On the first floor, a landing, with a timber-framed, full-height, glazed screen replacing the original balustrade, gives access to two rooms on either side of the main range and a smaller room placed centrally between them. A small shower room occupies the north-west corner of the front part of the main range, while the rear part contains a staff room to the south and, via a short flight of steps, an office at the north.

EXTERIOR: the stuccoed principal (south) elevation is symmetrical with a centrally placed entrance flanked by a pair of windows on the ground floor and three on the first floor. Fenestration is of replacement, timber-framed, horned sash windows without glazing bars in plain square-headed openings with timber sills. The windows have green-painted valances under the lintels. The entrance has a flat-roofed porch supported on columns. This appears to be a C20 replacement in the style of the original. The four-panel door has glazed upper lights with a transom and is flanked by pilasters. The hipped-roof has overhanging eaves with timber soffits. The western extension has a pair of windows with horned sash windows without glazing bars and a pair of plank double-doors at the western gable end with bargeboards to the gable.

The stuccoed east elevation of the main range has a later tripartite, timber-framed, horned sash window to each floor. These are without glazing bars and have timber sills and replacement valences. The first-floor of the lower northern part of the east elevation (the ground floor is obscured by the C21 flat-roofed extension) has a six-over-six, hornless, sash window in a segmental arched opening, a small modern rectangular window with a concrete surround and a two-over-two horned sash window in a square-headed opening. The south elevation of the small single-storey, flat-roofed eastern extension is of rough stonework with a double one-over-one timber casement window with a stone sill.

The first floor of the west elevation has two timber horned sash windows, the lower one with two-over-two glazing bars, and a further six-over-six hornless sash to the northern part, all in segmental-arched openings. There is a single multi-paned hornless sash window on the ground floor.

Of the two chimney stacks to the rear of the main range, only the eastern one survives and has been rendered in concrete. Another stack, on the eastern side of the north part of the main range, has also been removed.

INTERIOR: the hall has moulded plaster panelling, dado and picture rails and a foliate cornice. The open-string elliptical stair has stick balusters, a mahogany scroll handrail and spandrel ornamentation. The windows in the two ground-floor front rooms have internal shutters, those to the eastern window being of later date. On the first floor a number of four-panel doors, probably with their original surrounds open onto the landing. The eastern front room has a fireplace with a timber surround with bulls-eye corners and there is a small brick hearth in the north-east corner of the rearmost room.

Much of the interior of the building is taken up by operating theatres, dispensaries, laboratories and wards with modern finishes and loss of original features.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the western boundary wall is probably early to mid-C19 in date and is of brick laid in Flemish bond with a soldier course capping and buttresses on the western side. It terminates at the southern end with a pier with a flat stone cap. There is a matching pier at the south-east corner.

* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest, however any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require LBC and this is a matter for the LPA to determine.

History

Wood Street formed part of an important medieval east-west route connecting Chipping Barnet to the old Roman Watling Street and on to Watford. At the east end of Wood Street, it connected with Chipping Barnet High Street, part of the Great North Road connecting London with St Albans. At the junction of the two roads was the Market Place which, by the C16 and C17, was a centre for the London cattle and horse trades until superseded by Smithfield Market. Housing on Wood Street developed westward from the medieval core and by the end of the C18 a number of urban villas had begun to be built towards the western end of Wood Street including the house that later became the Victoria Maternity Hospital and 53 Wood Street.

Number 74 Wood Street probably dates to the early years of the C19 and is first shown on the 1818 enclosure award map as a T-plan building set back from the road with a pond immediately to the east. By the 1840 tithe map, indicating the occupier was a Sarah Dearman, a long lateral range had been added to the west. A 1928 aerial photograph shows the western part with a tall dormer suggestive of a hay loft and indicating a stable range or carriage house. The 1870 Ordnance Survey map shows the additional range plus a conservatory added to the west end of the main range. A small extension to the eastern rear had been added by the time of the 1898 OS map. The house remained in private hands until shortly after the 1901 census, which shows the occupier as Elizabeth Coe (as she had been in the 1891 census), when it became the residence of William Dawton Wallis, a veterinary surgeon who had graduated from the Edinburgh Veterinary College in 1895 and had previously occupied premises at 89 High Street, Barnet. The 1911 census shows the house to have been occupied by ten people including his wife, three daughters, his widowed father and two domestic servants. This suggests that the building was largely still residential at this point, although the 1913 OS map shows the conservatory to have been replaced by a small extension with a glazed link which may have acted as a surgery. By 1939, however, although still at this point retaining a residential function, the building had clearly developed into a full veterinary infirmary, now under Jack Pickup, who had been an assistant to W Dawton Wallis until his death in 1928 and had married his daughter, Edith. The register for 1939 lists, as well as his wife and son, another surgeon, nurses, a clerical assistant and a receptionist and dispenser.

After being taken over by Mike and Valerie Stockman on the retirement of Jack Pickup in 1967, the practice obtained the status of a Veterinary Hospital, one of the first practices to gain this accreditation. Today (2023) the building remains in use as a veterinary hospital.

Reasons for Listing

74 Wood Street, LB Barnet, an early-C19 villa, becoming a veterinary practice in the early-C20, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a good example of a Regency period suburban villa;

* for its largely unaltered symmetrical principal elevation and good survival of internal features.

Group value:

* with the pair of adjacent Grade II listed almshouses.

External Links

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