Lillington Gardens | |
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Construction | |
Architect | Roger Westman, John Darbourne, Geoffrey Darke |
Lillington Gardens is an estate in the Pimlico area of the City of Westminster, London, constructed in phases between 1961 and 1971 to a plan by Darbourne & Darke. [1] The estate was formerly owned and managed by CityWest Homes.
The estate was among the last of the high-density public housing schemes built in London during the postwar period and is referred to as one of the most distinguished. [2] Notably, seven years before the Ronan Point disaster ended the dominance of the tower block, Lillington Gardens looked ahead to a new standard that achieved high housing density within a medium-rise structure rather than a high-rise structure. It emphasised individuality in the grouping of dwellings and provided for private gardens at ground and roof levels.
The estate's high build quality, and particularly the planted gardens of its wide "roof streets", blend sympathetically with the surrounding Victorian terraces.
The estate's high-quality design was acknowledged by a Housing Design Award (1961), a Ministry of Housing and Local Government Award for Good Design (1970), a RIBA Award (1970), and a RIBA Commendation (1973). [3] The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described it in 1973 as "easily the most interesting recent housing in inner London". [4]
The site surrounds the Grade I listed Church of St James the Less, built in 1859–61. The entire estate, including the church, was designated a conservation area in 1990. [5]
Sir Charles BarryFRS RA was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.
Pimlico is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Victoria Station, by the River Thames to the south, Vauxhall Bridge Road to the east and the former Grosvenor Canal to the west. At its heart is a grid of residential streets laid down by the planner Thomas Cubitt, beginning in 1825 and now protected as the Pimlico Conservation Area. The most prestigious are those on garden squares, with buildings decreasing in grandeur away from St George's Square, Warwick Square, Eccleston Square and the main thoroughfares of Belgrave Road and St. George's Drive. Additions have included the pre–World War II Dolphin Square and the Churchill Gardens and Lillington and Longmoore Gardens estates, now conservation areas in their own right. The area has over 350 Grade II listed buildings and several Grade II* listed churches. At the western edge of Pimlico, on the borders of Chelsea, Pimlico Road has become known in recent years for its interiors and design stores.
The Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone was a metropolitan borough of the County of London from 1900 to 1965. It was based directly on the previously existing civil parish of St Marylebone, Middlesex, which was incorporated into the Metropolitan Board of Works area in 1855, retaining a parish vestry, and then became part of the County of London in 1889.
Dolphin Square is an estate of private flats with some ground floor business units near the River Thames in Pimlico, Westminster, London built between 1935 and 1937. Until the building of Highbury Square, it was the most developed garden square in London built as private housing. At one time, it was home to more than 70 MPs and at least 10 Lords.
The Holly Lodge Estate is a housing estate in Highgate, north London.
Span Developments Limited was a British property development company formed in the late 1950s by Geoffrey Townsend working in long and close partnership with Eric Lyons as consultant architect. During its most successful period in the 1960s, Span built over 2,000 homes in London, Surrey, Kent and East Sussex – mainly two- and three-bedroom single-family homes and apartment buildings.
The Hallfield Estate, owned by Westminster City Council, is one of several modernist housing projects in Bayswater, London designed in the immediate postwar period by the Tecton architecture practice, led by Berthold Lubetkin. Following the dissolution of Tecton, the project was realised by Denys Lasdun and Lindsay Drake in the 1950s. Construction took place in two phases during 1951–55 and 1955–58.
Churchill Gardens is a large housing estate in the Pimlico area of Westminster, London. The estate was developed between 1946 and 1962 to a design by the architects Powell and Moya, replacing Victorian terraced houses extensively damaged during the Blitz.
St James the Less is a Church of England parish church in Pimlico, Westminster, built in 1858–61 by George Edmund Street in the Gothic Revival style. A Grade I listed building, it has been described as "one of the finest Gothic Revival churches anywhere". The church was constructed predominantly in brick with embellishments from other types of stone. Its most prominent external feature is its free-standing Italian-style tower, while its interior incorporates design themes which Street observed in medieval Gothic buildings in continental Europe.
Darbourne & Darke was a firm of architects and landscape planners. Though their work includes a football stand, laboratories and offices, and the landscaping (1976–77) of much of Heathrow Airport, London, the firm's most notable output was in the realm of public housing.
George Topham Forrest, F.R.I.B.A. FGS FRSE was a Scottish architect who became chief architect for the London County Council and was responsible for the design of many public housing estates, and also co-designed two bridges over the River Thames.
The Ossulston Estate is a multi-storey council estate built by the London County Council on Chalton Street in Somers Town between 1927 and 1931. It was unusual at the time both in its inner-city location and in its modernist design, and all the original parts of the estate are now Grade II listed buildings.
Spa Green Estate between Rosebery Avenue and St John St in Clerkenwell, London EC1, England, is the most complete post-war realisation of a 1930s radical plan for social regeneration through Modernist architecture. Conceived as public housing, it is now a mixed community of private owners and council tenants, run by a resident-elected management organization. In 1998 this work by the architect Berthold Lubetkin received a Grade II* listing for its architectural significance, and the major 2008 restoration brought back the original colour scheme, which recalls Lubetkin's contacts with Russian Constructivism.
The Old Oak and Wormholt estates are London County Council cottage estates constructed between 1912 and 1928. They were declared a conservation area in May 1980. The two estates were influenced by Ebenezer Howard's Garden city movement and the Arts and Crafts movement, which high quality external detailing and an open setting with privet hedges, front gardens and wide grass verges.
Page Street is a street in Pimlico, in the City of Westminster, that runs from Regency Street in the west to the junction of John Islip Street and Dean Ryle Street in the east, parallel with Horseferry Road. It is crossed midway by Marsham Street.
The Brandon Estate is a social housing estate in Walworth, London Borough of Southwark, south London. Situated to the south of Kennington Park, it was built in 1958 by the London County Council, to designs by Edward Hollamby and Roger Westman.