Gillfoot and Dalehead flats, Camden Town (geograph 5048799)

The Ampthill Square Estate, also known as the Ampthill Estate, is a

housing estate A housing estate (or sometimes housing complex or housing development) is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Popular throughout the United States ...

in the

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and ...

in London, England. The estate is located in the Somers Town district, on the south side of

Harrington Square Harrington (or Harington) may refer to: People as a surname *Harrington (surname) People as a forename *Arthur Raikes (Arthur Edward Harington Raikes, 1867–1915), British army officer *Charles Harrington Elster, American writer *Edward Joseph ...

, east side of Hampstead Road, and west side of

Eversholt Street The A4200 is a major thoroughfare in central London. It runs between the A4 at Aldwych, to the A400 Hampstead Road/ Camden High Street, at Mornington Crescent tube station. Kingsway Kingsway is a major road in central London, desig ...

. The estate was built in the 1960s to replace dilapidated Victorian housing in the area. It is composed of eight 6-storey blocks on its east side and three distinctive 21-storey high rises on the west side, which dominate the local skyline. In total, the estate has 366 flats and maisonettes: 240 of which are in the towers. The estate was reclad in the 1980s. Its

cladding Cladding is an outer layer of material covering another. It may refer to the following: *Cladding (boiler), the layer of insulation and outer wrapping around a boiler shell *Cladding (construction), materials applied to the exterior of buildings ...

was found in 2017 to be solid aluminium, after fears it might be the same ACM cladding as

Grenfell Tower Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. The tower was named after Grenfell Road, which ran to ...

. It received a further £20m in investment in 2005. The site was formerly known as

Fig Mead The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the worl ...

. It was developed as a

garden suburb The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, industry, and ...

by the

Duke of Bedford Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for five distinct people) in the Peerage of England. The first and second creations came in 1414 and 1433 respectively, in favour of Henry IV's third so ...

, as part of the

Bedford Estate The Bedford Estate is an estate in central London owned by the Russell family, which holds the peerage title of Duke of Bedford. The estate was originally based in Covent Garden, then stretched to include Bloomsbury in 1669.Ampthill Ampthill () is a town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, between Bedford and Luton, with a population estimate of 8,100 (Mid year estimate 2017 from the ONS). It is administered bAmpthill Town Council The ward of Ampthill which also i ...

, the Bedfordshire town where the Dukes of Bedford owned

Houghton House Houghton House is a ruined mansion house in the parish of Houghton Conquest, Bedfordshire. It is a Grade I listed building, positioned above the surrounding countryside, and commands excellent views. Built from 1615 to 1621, it is said that the ...

. Half of the square itself was soon bought by the

London and Birmingham Railway The London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR). The railway line which the company opened in 1838, betw ...

for its tracks into

Euston station Euston railway station ( ; also known as London Euston) is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, managed by Network Rail. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line, the UK's busiest inter-city railw ...

. In this time,

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

bought his mistress Ellen Lawless Ternan a house; No 2 Houghton Place, Ampthill Square However, it fell into disrepair, including being directly hit by a bomb in the Second World War, and the estate was built on the site. While Ampthill Square previously had two bridges that crossed the railways that fed into Euston, the rebuilt estate is separated from the western side of the railway. There was a fatal stabbing on the estate in 2017.

References

Housing estates in the London Borough of Camden Squares in the London Borough of Camden Bedford Estate {{London-geo-stub