Lillington Gardens is an estate in the

Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...

area of the

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and London boroughs, borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of cent ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, constructed in phases between 1961 and 1971 to a plan by Roger Westman and

Darbourne & Darke Darbourne & Darke was a firm of architects and landscape planners. Though their work includes a football stand (for Chelsea Football Club, London, 1972–4), laboratories and offices, and the landscaping (1976–7) of much of Heathrow Airport, ...

. The estate was formerly owned and managed by

CityWest Homes CityWest Homes was an arm's length management organisation (ALMO) of Westminster City Council, London, England, established in April 2002 in order to manage its housing stock. They managed over 21,000 properties which included council tenant a ...

. The estate was among the last of the high-density public housing schemes built in London during the postwar period, and is referred to as one of the most distinguished.Lillington and Longmoore Gardens Conservation Area, General Information Leaflet, City of Westminster Department of Planning and City Development, February 2012 Notably, seven years before the

Ronan Point Ronan Point was a 22-storey tower block in Canning Town in Newham, East London, that partly collapsed on 16 May 1968, only two months after it had opened. A gas explosion blew out some load-bearing walls, causing the collapse of one entire corn ...

disaster ended the dominance of the

tower block A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, residential tower, apartment block, block of flats, or office tower is a tall building A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently ...

, Lillington Gardens looked ahead to a new standard that achieved high housing density within a medium rather than high-rise structure. It emphasised individuality in the grouping of dwellings, and provided for private gardens at ground and roof levels. The estate's high build quality, and particularly the planted gardens of its wide "roof streets", blend sympathetically with the surrounding Victorian terraces. The estate's high quality design was acknowledged by a Housing Design Award (1961), Ministry of Housing and Local Government Award for Good Design (1970), RIBA Award (1970) and RIBA Commendation (1973).

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

described it in 1973 as "the most interesting recent housing scheme in London". The site surrounds the Grade I listed Church of St James the Less, built in 1859–61. The entire estate, including the church, was designated a

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

in 1990.

References

{{coord, 51.4909, -0.1359, scale:5000_region:GB, display=title, name=Lillington Gardens Housing estates in the City of Westminster Grade II* listed buildings in the City of Westminster Grade II* listed residential buildings Pimlico Conservation areas in London

Further reading

References