Holborn, The Bourne Estate, EC1 - geograph

The Bourne Estate is an

Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

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 a ...

in the London Borough of Camden

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

. It is bounded by Clerkenwell Road to the north, Gray's Inn Road to the west,

Leather Lane Leather Lane is a street west of Hatton Garden, in the Holborn area of London. It is home to a well-used weekday market which specialises in clothing, footwear and fruit and vegetables. There are now many food retailers capitalising off the l ...

to the east and

Baldwins Gardens Baldwin Gardens is an east–west road running between Gray's Inn Road and Leather Lane, in London Borough of Camden, Camden, London, England. The surrounding streets were laid out in the 17th century on an intersecting grid pattern from north t ...

to the south. It is also intersected by Portpool Lane, which forms part of the estate itself. The estate is built in a free Classical style, with

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

touches, developing the idiom established by the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

with the

Boundary Estate The Boundary Estate is a housing development in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London. It is positioned just inside Bethnal Green's historic parish and borough boundary with Shoreditch, which ran along ''Boundary Stre ...

and

Millbank Estate Millbank is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. Millbank is located by the River Thames, east of Pimlico and south of Westminster. Millbank is known as the location of major government offices, Burberry headquarters, the Millb ...

in a formal direction. The estate consists of a number of residential blocks which enclose a number of quiet shady courtyards containing mature trees, mostly London Plane trees. The buildings are constructed in dusky red and yellow bricks and the design incorporates classical

pediments Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pediment ...

and stucco

pilasters In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall ...

as well as arts and crafts details such as gabled walls, and

casement windows A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

on the inner courtyards and decorative mouldings to the large arches on the access ways. In 2013 planning permission was granted for a £14 million regeneration of the Bourne Estate. Matthew Lloyd Architects’ scheme, developed with Camden Council and Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design, provides 75 new homes across two mixed tenure blocks. Landscaping is to be improved across the southern half of the estate with re-ordered public realm, sports and playspaces by Dally Henderson Landscape Architects.

History

Constructed from 1905–1909, it is regarded as one of London's best examples of tenement housing and the majority of the housing blocks within the Estate have been

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The Estate was designed by the

Architect's Department, by E. H. Parkes under W. E. Riley. The Bourne Estate is the third of the three key estates built by the London County Council in the years of its greatest innovation. In Britain the Bourne Estate is the least known, but it has an international significance as the model for the much admired and highly influential public housing erected in Vienna immediately after the First World War. The Viennese model was subsequently brought back to England, as can be seen in the Ossulton Estate, Camden, listed some years ago, and in some private mansion blocks in central London of the 1930s. The surrounding streets were laid out in the 17th century on an intersecting grid pattern from north to south, east to west. Portpool Lane is part of the estate itself and derives its name from the old manor of

Portpool Portpool was a manorialism, manor or Soke (legal), soke in the district of Holborn, London. It is not recorded in the Domesday Book but references to it occur from the 12th century onwards. For many years it was owned by the Dean and Chapter of ...

which was held by Grays of Wilton, also for

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

. The estate was originally bounded at its southern edge by factories and industrial buildings that were damaged during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and demolished. To the southwest of the estate was Thanksgiving Model Buildings, built in 1850 for the 'Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes', this block consisted of two four-storey buildings providing accommodation for 20 families and 128 single women. Also badly bomb-damaged in 1943 during the Blitz, the buildings were subsequently demolished. Two

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

residential blocks and sports and play facilities were added to this land, with Mawson Building to the South and Gooch Building to the southwest on the former site of Thanksgiving Model Building. A major redevelopment of this part of the estate is planned by Camden Council to take place 2013–16, including the demolition of the unlisted Mawson Building and addition of new blocks in-keeping with the original

architecture. These new blocks will be mixed private and social housing. Higgins Construction have been appointed to carry out this scheme. The works started in May 2014 and they are scheduled to be completed in August 2016. A number of the buildings in the Bourne Estate appear to have been named after former

Bishops of Ely The Bishop of Ely is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire (with the exception of the Soke of Peterborough), together with a section of north ...

, perhaps a reference to nearby

Ely Place Ely Place is a gated road of multi-storey terraces at the southern tip of the London Borough of Camden in London, England. It hosts a 1773-rebuilt public house, Ye Olde Mitre, of Tudor origin and is adjacent to Hatton Garden. It is privatel ...

, as follows: Shene, Ledham, Skipwith, Denys, Frewell, Scrope, Radcliffe, Redman,

Nigel Nigel ( ) is an English masculine given name. The English ''Nigel'' is commonly found in records dating from the Middle Ages; however, it was not used much before being revived by 19th-century antiquarians. For instance, Walter Scott published ...

Laney Laney may refer to: *Laney (surname) *Laney, Georgia, U.S. *Laney, Wisconsin, U.S. *Emsley A. Laney High School, a high school near Wilmington, North Carolina *Lucy Craft Laney High School. a high school in Augusta, Georgia. *Laney College, a com ...

, Buckridge,

Kirkby Kirkby ( ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. The town, historically in Lancashire, has a size of is north of Huyton and north-east of Liverpool. The population in 2016 was 41,495 making it the largest ...

Mawson Sir Douglas Mawson OBE FRS FAA (5 May 1882 – 14 October 1958) was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Sir Ernest Shackleton, he was a key expedition leader durin ...

and Gooch

Transport

The nearest London underground stations are Chancery Lane and Farringdon, with overground trains running from Farringdon.

References

External links

Details

Photo

Northern Estate

Southern Estate

Plans for further development
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