Raising the Roofs
It’s the part of London associated with the dead but there’s also plenty of life in Highgate. England does pubs well and The Flask is an oasis for thirsty – and hungry – travellers. The pub blends in so well with its Georgian neighbours it could easily be mistaken for one of the grand houses. A stone plaque on the five bay three storey redbrick façade displays the date “1663” which must predate the current building. A rabbit warren of bars and dining rooms, some under low vaulted ceilings bending all sorts of modern building regulations, has all the atmosphere of a coaching inn. Highwayman Claude Duval might just swing by for a pint.
Or a glass of Champagne. She may have had a vested interest but a chalk message on a blackboard in The Flask quotes the sage words of Lilly Bollinger, “I only drink Champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it – unless I’m thirsty.” A faded print of Queen Anne hangs on the ladies’ lavatory door; Henry Prince of Wales beckons the gents.
Opposite The Flask is The Grove, an early 18th century suburban residential development in leafy environs. Poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Leigh Hunt; spy Anthony Blunt; singer George Michael; musicians Annie Lennox, Yehudi Menuhin and Sting; actors Gladys Cooper, Robert Donat and Jude Law; and model Kate Moss have all called The Grove home across the ages. It’s the sort of Georgian enclave that can only be found in London’s classier outlying villages such as Blackheath, Clapham and West Dulwich.
Across the road, or is it down the hill, or maybe over the brae – Highgate’s attractiveness is matched only by its confusion of layout – stands Lauderdale House. Vicky Wilson writes in London’s Houses, 2011, “An unattractive pebbledash building with an uninspiring five bay Georgian entrance front, a surprisingly unthought-out arrangement of windows on its long southeast side and a fine Doric colonnade at the back, Lauderdale House is nevertheless endowed with a history – both architectural and social. One of the few surviving large timber framed London houses, Lauderdale was built in 1582 by Sir Richard Martin, Warden and Masterworker of the Royal Mint, for his younger son Richard, probably with a rich bounty of Spanish gold earned from financing Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigatoin of 1577 to 1580.”
She summarises the evolution of the house: “The Martins’ home was designed to be a U shaped plan around a central courtyard. The long southeast flank was probably divided into three rooms with a traditional great chamber on the first floor; the present entrance hall in the northeast wing was probably a dining room. A single storey building at the open end of the courtyard, connected by a corridor to the dining room, contained the kitchens. The construction is timberframe infilled with wattle and daub, with the larger upper floor frame resting on projecting joists, a method known as continuous jetting. The slight projection of the the upper floor today and the asymmetrical fenestration on the long front are the clearest clues to the building’s Tudor origins.”
Professor Finola O’Kane of University College Dublin has a slightly more positive view of the house, “Lauderdale House is an attractive, rambling, not very distinguished looking building which conceals a much earlier timber house. It has a few vestiges of its early garden including a parterre and mount. St Paul’s Cathedral could be seen from the garden. This is a suburban house closer to the City than the West End. Highgate wasn’t very fashionable in the 17th century and it really only got going in the 18th century.”
Both commentators criticise its mostly casual appearance resulting from a Georgian cloak draping over a Tudor frame. The lawn front is symmetrical from the first floor five bay jettied projection upwards. A second floor Diocletian window is surmounted by a pediment and flanked by half gables. The garden backs onto Waterlow Park which in turn abuts Highgate Cemetery. Lauderdale House is now an arts and education centre. Sunbathers catch rays between crawling ladybirds and fluttering white butterflies. A sky of awnings provides respite from the summer heat. An ice cream parlour is handily located off the lawn front.
Northwest of Lauderdale House is the former residence of the 19th century explorer Mary Kingsley. She was brought up in Avalon, a late Georgian two storey over basement redbrick villa with an elegant prostyle Roman Doric porch. The only window on the façade is over the porch. Four blind windows complete the balanced elevational composition. Wide windows capture views of the Capital on the garden facing south front. Opposite Avalon is a long single storey redbrick block with a double height centrepiece. A plaque under the central pediment reads: “Anno 1722. The si almes-houses founded by Sir John Woolaston being very old and decayed were pull’d down and these 12 built in their room together with a schoolhouse for the charity girls at the sole charge of Edward Pauncfort, one of the governours and treasurer of the Chapell and Free School of Highgate.”
In contrast to its Georgian neighbours, Holly Village is very High Victorian Gothic. An archway on one side and a gateway on the other side linked by holly hedgerows provide tantalising glimpses of 12 highly ornate large cottages grouped around a green. Built in 1865 by the property developer William Cubitt to the design of Henry Astley Darbishire, the four villas and four pairs of semi detached houses are – to use modern property parlance – highly spec’d, from Portland stone to teak wood. Gated developments are very Highgate: luxuriously appointed apartment and housing schemes behind cast iron railings would arrive in the 20th century on nearby Hillway.
Another piece of non neoclassical architecture is the Catholic Church of St Joseph on Highgate Hill. It is known locally as “Smoky Joe’s” after the high church religious order which runs it. The Passionists built the current monastery and chapel in 1858 in a Neo Romanesque style to the design of Albert Vicars (potentially some nominative determinism going on with that surname). The powerful white gone grey brick complex with copper domes over a dominant octagonal tower and smaller octagonal corner turrets dominates the townscape southeast of Lauderdale House.
The cemetery can wait.
Postscript: we know many of you missed out on the limited first edition of our bestseller Sabbath Plus One. But fear not: Daunt Marylebone may have sold out but north London’s top independent literature retailer House of Books in West Hampstead is now stocking the second edition. And the most flattering compliment of the month comes from said retailer about the 30 year old opening portrait in the fabric covered hand stitched 300 GSM paper heavyweight book, “That’s still you!”
