News: Pelham Crescent and Barrack Lane

Thursday, January 29, 2004 - 07:17 PM

Arthur Moore of Pelham Crescent has sent a contribution relating to the history of his property and a house in Barrack Lane. Click on "Read more..." to see it.

Keep the news coming, it's most welcome.

We live at 8 Pelham Crescent, a bungalow built - we think - about 1960 in part of the grounds of 11 Western Terrace. There is another bungalow - 12 Western Terrace on our back wall, which was also built in part of 11 Western Terrace's grounds. We were told that a brewing family had owned 'the large house' and they had the two bungalows built to provide additional accommodation for different parts of the family.

The lady who used to live at 1 Barrack Lane told us that when she was a young girl she played with the children from the large house, which was interesting as I would have thought there was a difference in their social status - which was perhaps not as rigid in Edwardian times as we might have thought. She also said that there was a head gardener and three under-gardeners to maintain the gardens and that the head gardener lived at 1 Barrack Lane.

When we moved in, there was a derelict Victorian greenhouse on our Western boundary against the wall of 1 Barrack Lane. Its outline can still be seen in whitewash on that wall. Under our garden there were the remains of a large heating pipe which we believe carried heat to the greenhouse from a boiler in 11 Western terrace - presumably to keep vines or oranges through the winter.

I could never get anything to grow on the North Eastern corner of our property and I found remains of the foundations and tiling for another greenhouse on this corner of the property.
This can be seen on a 1952 aerial photograph. A third greenhouse and shed were located on the Barrack Lane boundary. One was said to contain ferns, the second for exotics requiring heat as detailed above and I guess the third would be needed for raising seedlings and more typically British plants such as tomatoes?

From the aerial photograph it is clear that formal lawns were maintained in front of 11 Western Terrace and that our property was the 'working' part of the garden.

Arthur Moore
27 Jan 04