Villa Camden Road

Directly opposite the Baptist Chapel in the Camden-road, and at the corner of Middleton-road, a large house is nearly completed, for – Harding, Esq. It is entered from the side by a flat-roofed porch. The hall is large and Square, with a wide staircase running around it. On the ground floor there is a moderately large library, and spacious dining and drawing rooms. The latter is 29 feet long. There is an anteroom leading to it, which will also open into a conservatory at the back. The three principal rooms all face the road. On the first and second floors we have ten bed- rooms and a dressing-room. The basement is level with the ground, but a bank of terrace front and back, with rising footpaths, restores the proper appearance of the building, and enables the entrance porch to be gained with seven steps only, instead of a whole flight of stairs outside the house. The whole plan has been so well studied that not a foot of space is lost, and the greatest conveniences pervade the building. The windows on the exterior instead of being all crowded on the front, as we too often see them, are so nicely balanced that although there are no less than fifty-four of them, the amount of unbroken wall-space is a striking feature in the design, and we feel, in admiring it, a regret that architects so frequently, not only disregard the value of plain wall surface, but go to an expense to destroy it. The general work is executed in a light yellow brick with a slight and judicious introduction of stone in the skew backs of window heads, and corbels supporting bay window, and a moderate employment of red brick in strings, &c. A portion of the building, containing the smaller rooms, is kept lower than the rest, and a variety is thus given, not only to the roofs but to the general front. The ground floor windows are to be glazed with plate glass. The dwarf wall and railing in front of the house are particularly good. The latter is formed of cast-iron standards about 6 feet apart, let into stone blocks. There are half-round red coping bricks between the stone blocks, and plain wrought-iron bars between the standards. Similar half-round coping bricks run up the side of the gables and meet against stone finials. The chimney pots are of slate. There is no cement on the exterior of the building; the rain-water pipes are showy and effective. The works have been executed by Mr. Evans, builder, from the designs of Mr. George Truefitt, who is also the architect of the adjoining pair of semi-detached houses. They are similar in style and character to that which we have described, and the basements of them are likewise built out of the ground. Each of these consists of (besides the kitchen department on the basement), a library, dining and drawing-room on the ground floor, and three bed-rooms, and a dressing-room on each of the upper floors. The green bank or terrace which we have already described in Mr. Harding's house, will be continued on the same level in front of this pair. They have a large and striking appearance, and are built to let for £85 per annum each. [Building News 9 December 1859 page 1009]

Reference    Building News 9 December 1859 page 1009