Lonsdale Square

Lonsdale Square, in Barnsbury, is a garden square in London. Its tall brick town houses have steep gables (tapering upper walls), mullioned (transomed) cream-dressed windows and alike-dressed steep, triangular cornices, arched, dark front doors and formal street-side railings. The private communal garden, on one side having a row of conifers, takes up the central, precise 50%, of the 1.28-acre (0.52 ha), otherwise paved and asphalted square, measured internally. Inclusive of all gardens, the square stands on 3.2 acres (1.3 ha).

The central garden
A corner of the square

The houses are listed in the middle (second-rarest) category of the national scheme for the recognition and protection of buildings (Grade II* listed) and have rear gardens.[1]

The nearest tube stations are Highbury & Islington to the north-east and Angel to the south-east. The postcode is N1. The Anglican parish is Barnsbury, an early offshoot of Islington.[2]

Architecture

The square was built between about 1838 and 1845.[3] The houses are of Gothic Revival dimensions, ornamentation, interiors and colouring by R. C. Carpenter, with wholly below-street level basements and slight projections to the main bays which are of aged yellow (yellow-grey-brown) brick with stone dressings.[3][4][5][6] The square was built in the same style as the two approach roads (north and south) which unusually share in its name; of a different style is the public house at the north end of one of these, since the late 20th century trading as The Drapers Arms, its theme of quality food means it is termed, in London, a gastropub.

Notable residents

Since 2000

Conductor Simon Rattle has a home on the square.[7] Whole houses cost several million pounds.[8] Upmarket zones away from the West End of London are typified by more highly skilled, UK-based professionals with families than diplomats or the superrich.[8] The author Salman Rushdie had a basement apartment, per his memoir, Joseph Anton: A Memoir.[9]

A residents' association, the Lonsdale Square Society annually agrees and collects the maintenance contribution to the garden. The rule of Halsall v Brizell means that freeholders using the infrastructure must contribute to it; the original positive covenant was maintained by mechanism of the owner-occupiers only being granted long leases, in the typical Central London style which provides no escape from most obligations; some owners have been able to gain and use the right to buy up, by a prescribed mechanism, the third-party (reversionary) interests to their homes and become the freeholders.

See also

References
  1. Historic England. "1 to 24 (1279473)". National Heritage List for England.
    Historic England. "25 to 48 (1195675)". National Heritage List for England.
  2. Anglican parish finder Parish of Barnsbury, Diocese of London
  3. Elliott, John (2008) [2004]. Carpenter, Richard Cromwell. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 November 2012. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  4. Elliott, John (2011). "R. C. Carpenter (1812–55): the Anglicans' Pugin". In Webster, Christopher (ed.). The Practice of Architecture: eight architects, 1830–1930. Spire Studies in Architectural History. 1. Reading: Spire Books. pp. 135–137. ISBN 978-1-904965-34-3.
  5. Historic England, "Nos.1–24 and attached railings, Lonsdale Square (1279473)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 21 November 2012
  6. Historic England, "Nos.25–48 (Consecutive) and attached railings, Lonsdale Square (1195675)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 21 November 2012
  7. "Simon Rattle". www.company-director-check.co.uk. UK: Director Check. Retrieved 19 September 2012.
  8. "House Prices in Lonsdale Square, Islington, North London, N1". Rightmove. UK. Retrieved 31 December 2015.
  9. "Exclusive excerpt from Salman Rushdie's memoir, Joseph Anton". www.thestar.com. The Star. 18 September 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2012.
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