Photograph and text Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Houses in Park Village West. Sir James Pennethorne. 1832. Cream stucco. Just off Albany Street, Camden, London. Frontage (i.e., the "return wing") on Albany Street
John Nash acquired the leases on these plots of land just near Regent's Park in the 1820s, and James Pennethorne, who was working in his office then, designed the terrace consisting of Nos. 1-7. The houses, all in cream stucco, are described in Camden Council's Grade II starred listing as a "Terrace of double fronted houses with 2 houses at each end forming return wings (western wing to Albany Street)." The rest of Park Village West was completed in 1837. The Council's listing introduces the whole development with the words, "Picturesque layout and houses by John Nash, James Pennethorne and other assistants in the Nash office. For the Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues."
Park Villages East and West together have been called "the ancestors of all picturesque suburbia" (qtd. in Turnor 16), although there are other early examples both in London and in different parts of the country (and indeed in America). It is worth noting that J. R. H. Roberts and W. H. Godfrey pick out Pennethorne's early contribution for special comment: "the casement windows in groups of two and three lights and the canted bays with their roofs forming a porch for the entrance, have since become familiar features everywhere."
Related Material
- Park Villages East and West, Camden
- Holly Village, Highgate
- Norham Gardens in North Oxford
- Houses from a similar period in Providence, Rhode Island (USA)
Sources
Camden Council. "Listed Building Details". Viewed 10 May 2008.
Roberts, J. R. Howard, and Walter H. Godfrey, eds. "Park Village West." Survey of London, Vol. 21 (1949). British History Online. Viewed 10 May 2008.
Turnor, Reginald. Nineteenth Century Architecture in Britain. London: Batsford, 1950.
Tyack, Geoffrey. "Sir James Pennethorne (1801-1871)." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Viewed 10 May 2008.
Last modified 10 May 2008