Description

31/0/10457 HAMPSTEAD WAY
16-SEP-04 Hampstead Garden Suburb
Queens Court

GV II
Housing for working women within Hampstead Garden Suburb, sponsored and still owned by the United Womens Housing Association. 1927 with minor later alterations. Hendry and Schooling, architects. Red brick in stretcher bond with hipped tile roofs and wood framed casements. 2 storey range in a Vernacular Revival style.
PLAN: Extended L-plan of 11 contiguous ranges, the rear reached by 3 open loggias.
EXTERIOR: To North side of Hampstead Way, a long range of two units flanking a central loggia with an additional half-unit to far right. Each unit comprises a pair of advanced gabled 'crosswings' at each end, these with corbelled flat tile eaves and 3-light casements to both storeys, and a recessed centre with central entrance under tall dormer that cuts through the eaves, flanked by high 3-light casements under short dormers. The central entrances have deep canopies of varying segmental or gambrel profile on console brackets; above this, a grid of bricks laid alternatively horizontal and vertical and flat tiles. The loggias are supported on 8 abstractly jowelled posts under beams, and with flat in the roof above, this with a wide dormer window with 3-light casements flanking blind panels with diagonal detail. Corner marked with wider canted range that has hipped roof and 4-light dormer over similar detailed brickwork and canopy. Return elevation to east has a central loggia as before but wider and with 3 separate dormers; the units to each side are similarly detailed, and next corner similarly canted and with hipped roof, but with wide entrance through to rear with timber lintel resting on flat tiles.
Rear elevations are similar but plainer, with round arched openings to rear doors. Return elevation to south has further 2 units, similarly detailed.
INTERIOR: Includes stick baluster staircases and some original doors. 1980s alterations have changed the former bedsit arrangement to flats.
HISTORY: Queen's Court was built in 1927 for the United Women's Homes Association (UWHA) within the Hampstead Garden Suburb (HGS). The support for their construction was drawn from Lord Emmott, a Liberal MP whose wife, Lady Mary Gertrude Emmott was actively involved with housing reform and the UWHA, as well as from Henrietta Barnett, founder of the Hampstead Garden Suburb. Barnett was keen to include housing for all groups within the suburb and she pressed for the construction of Queens Court and Emmott Close, which were to be sponsored by the UWHA. In 1907, architects Barry Parker and Raymond Unwin published a preliminary plan of their proposed development within the suburb; this included buildings on the pentagonal area of land known as the 'Temple Fortune Open Space' and forming a central point for the radiating streets lined with the housing. However, later plans showed a public garden on this site and Parker and Unwin argued for retention of the open space but Barnett and Emmott were persuasive and won, Barnett somewhat mischeviously not indicating that there were any covenants to maintain this open space behind Arcade House (q.v.) Queens Court was eventually built to designs of a new UWHA for Ashtead by the architects Hendry and Schooling; other considered options such as two-storey cottages and a scheme by Barry Parker, Thomas Garrett and Son were were deemed too costly. The second UWHA development, Emmott Close, was built the following year also by Hendry and Schooling. Barnett defended the Queens Court development, pointing out that it was sited exactly where buildings had been shown in Unwin's earliest plan, noting that the tennis courts could still be built, and just the pond was foregone. She went on to say that Edwin Lutyens had described the building as 'the best bit of modern domestic architecture you have got on the estate'.
SOURCES: Mervyn Miller and A. Stuart Gray, 'Hampstead Garden Suburb' (Phillimore, 1992); C.W. Ikin, 'Hampstead Garden Suburb' (HGS Trust, 1990); Drawings for the Hendry and Schooling scheme survive in the Hampstead Garden Suburb Archive at London Metropolitan Archive.

Listed as contextual Vernacular Revival style development of 1927 that possesses strong historic interest as well as group value within this important suburb, having direct links to its founder the philanthropist Henrietta Barnett and providing social housing for working women.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27087060

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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